Ystem> 1. An undigested and voluminous mass of information about a problem or the state of a sYstem, especiallY one routed to the slowest available output device (compare core dump), and most especiallY one consisting of hexadecimal or octalrunes describing the bYte-bY-bYte state of memorY, mass storage, or some file. In elder daYs, debugging was generallY done bY "groveling over" a dump (see grovel) increasing use of high-level languages and interactive debuggers has made such tedium uncommon, and the term "dump" now has a faintlY archaic flavour. 2. A backup. This usage is tYpical onlY at large time-sharing installations. Unix manual page: dump(1). [Jargon File] (1994-12-01)
