/kom' pyoo-tron"/ 1. A notional unit of com
PUting power combining instruction speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That machine can' t run GNU Emacs, it doesn' t have enough com
PUtrons!" This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat com
PUting power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel horsepower. See
bitty box, {Get a real com
PUter!}, {toy}, {crank}. 2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of com
PUtation or information, in much the same way that an electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also
bogon). An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of com
PUtrons has been developed based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued that an object melts because the molecules have lost their information about where they are supposed to be (that is, they have emitted com
PUtrons). This explains why com
PUters get so hot and require air conditioning they use up com
PUtrons. Conversely, it should be possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a com
PUtron beam. It is believed that this may also explain why machines that work at the factory fail in the com
PUter room: the com
PUtrons there have been all used up by the other hardware. (This theory probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories by Larry Niven, the best known being "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", in which magic is fuelled by an exhaustible natural resource called "mana".) [
Jargon File]
In addition suitable contents:
[ 2 ] [ = ] [ actor ] [ ag ] [ ai ] [ al ] [ am ] [ an ] [ ar ] [ arc ] [ arg ] [ as ] [ at ] [ atomic ] [ au ] [ av ] [ b ] [ ba ] [ base ] [ be ] [ beam ] [ bi ] [ bit ] [ bitty box ] [ bj ] [ bo ] [ bogon ] [ box ] [ by ] [ byte ] [ C ] [ ca ] [ capacity ] [ ch ] [ char ] [ ci ] [ ck ] [ cl ] [ co ] [ com ] [ comPUter ] [ comPUting ] [ con ] [ cr ] [ crank ] [ cu ] [ D ] [ de ] [ die ] [ do ] [ down ] [ du ] [ E ] [ ec ] [ ed ] [ ee ] [ eg ] [ electron ] [ er ] [ es ] [ et ] [ fact ] [ factor ] [ fi ] [ file ] [ fo ] [ for ] [ G ] [ ga ] [ ge ] [ Get a real comPUter! ] [ gh ] [ gi ] [ GNU ] [ GNU E ] [ GNU Emacs ] [ Go ] [ gu ] [ h ] [ hardware ] [ hat ] [ hing ] [ hr ] [ id ] [ ie ] [ il ] [ in ] [ io ] [ ir ] [ is ] [ it ] [ J ] [ Jargon File ] [ ke ] [ kn ] [ la ] [ ld ] [ Lex ] [ li ] [ ls ] [ lt ] [ ly ] [ ma ] [ machine ] [ magic ] [ man ] [ meg ] [ megabyte ] [ meta ] [ mm ] [ mo ] [ mod ] [ module ] [ mp ] [ mu ] [ my ] [ N ] [ na ] [ ne ] [ nf ] [ ng ] [ ni ] [ no ] [ ns ] [ object ] [ om ] [ op ] [ pa ] [ path ] [ pe ] [ ph ] [ physical ] [ pl ] [ pr ] [ pseudo ] [ py ] [ query ] [ rc ] [ re ] [ real ] [ rl ] [ ro ] [ room ] [ ru ] [ run ] [ S ] [ sa ] [ sam ] [ sc ] [ se ] [ sh ] [ si ] [ sn ] [ so ] [ source ] [ st ] [ storage ] [ store ] [ struct ] [ su ] [ T ] [ tap ] [ th ] [ theory ] [ to ] [ toy ] [ tr ] [ tron ] [ tt ] [ tty ] [ ua ] [ ug ] [ up ] [ us ] [ ve ] [ yt ]