/seks/ [Sun Users' Group & elsewhere] 1. Softw
are EXchange. A technique invented by the blue-green algae hundreds of millions of ye
ars ago to speed up their evolution, which had been terribly slow up until then. Today, SEX p
arties
are popul
ar among hackers and others (of course, these
are no longer limited to exchanges of genetic softw
are). In general, SEX p
arties
are a
Good Thing, but unprotected SEX can propagate a
virus. See also
pubic directory. 2. The
mnemonic often used for Sign EXtend, a machine instruction found in the
PDP-11 and many other
architectures. The
RCA 1802 chip used in the e
arly
Elf and SuperElf
personal computers had a "SEt X register" SEX instruction, but this seems to have had little folkloric impact. DEC' s engineers ne
arly got a
PDP-11 assembler that used the "SEX" mnemonic out the door at one time, but (for once) m
arketing wasn' t asleep and forced a change. That wasn' t the last time this happened, either. The author of "The Intel 8086 Primer", who was one of the original designers of the
Intel 8086, noted that there was originally a "SEX" instruction on that processor, too. He says that Intel management got cold feet and decreed that it be changed, and thus the instruction was renamed "CBW" and "CWD" (depending on what was being extended). The
Intel 8048 (the
microcontroller used in
IBM PC keybo
ards) is also missing straight "SEX" but has logical-or and logical-and instructions "ORL" and "ANL". The
Motorola 6809, used in the UK' s "
Dragon 32" {personal computer}, actually had an official "SEX" instruction the
6502 in the
Apple II with which it competed did not. British hackers thought this made perfect mythic sense after all, it was commonly observed, you could (on some theoretical level) have sex with a dragon, but you can' t have sex with an apple. [
Jargon File] (1998-03-03)
In addition suitable contents:
[ 1802 ] [ 2 ] [ 6502 ] [ 6809 ] [ 8048 ] [ 8086 ] [ = ] [ ad ] [ ae ] [ af ] [ ag ] [ ai ] [ al ] [ am ] [ an ] [ ANL ] [ app ] [ Apple II ] [ ar ] [ arc ] [ architecture ] [ arg ] [ as ] [ assembler ] [ at ] [ au ] [ av ] [ B ] [ b ] [ be ] [ bi ] [ bo ] [ boa ] [ board ] [ bs ] [ by ] [ C ] [ CA ] [ ca ] [ ch ] [ chip ] [ ci ] [ ck ] [ co ] [ com ] [ computer ] [ con ] [ control ] [ controller ] [ cr ] [ CW ] [ D ] [ de ] [ DEC ] [ dec ] [ design ] [ ding ] [ directory ] [ do ] [ DP ] [ dragon ] [ du ] [ E ] [ ec ] [ ed ] [ ee ] [ eg ] [ engine ] [ er ] [ era ] [ es ] [ et ] [ extend ] [ fi ] [ file ] [ fo ] [ for ] [ G ] [ ga ] [ gate ] [ ge ] [ gen ] [ gh ] [ gi ] [ gn ] [ Go ] [ Good Thing ] [ gr ] [ h ] [ hack ] [ hacker ] [ hang ] [ hat ] [ hing ] [ hit ] [ hn ] [ hr ] [ ht ] [ hu ] [ IBM ] [ id ] [ ie ] [ il ] [ in ] [ Intel 8048 ] [ io ] [ iq ] [ ir ] [ is ] [ it ] [ J ] [ Jargon File ] [ K ] [ ke ] [ key ] [ keyboard ] [ la ] [ ld ] [ Lex ] [ li ] [ lk ] [ logical ] [ ls ] [ lu ] [ ly ] [ M ] [ ma ] [ machine ] [ man ] [ management ] [ micro ] [ microcontroller ] [ mil ] [ mill ] [ mm ] [ mn ] [ mnemonic ] [ mo ] [ mod ] [ module ] [ Motorola ] [ Motorola 6809 ] [ mp ] [ ms ] [ my ] [ N ] [ na ] [ named ] [ nc ] [ ne ] [ net ] [ ng ] [ ni ] [ nl ] [ no ] [ np ] [ ns ] [ O ] [ om ] [ op ] [ OR ] [ pa ] [ PC ] [ PD ] [ PDP ] [ PDP-11 ] [ pe ] [ perf ] [ personal computer ] [ ph ] [ pl ] [ pop ] [ pr ] [ process ] [ processor ] [ pubic directory ] [ query ] [ rc ] [ RCA 1802 ] [ re ] [ register ] [ RL ] [ rl ] [ ro ] [ ru ] [ S ] [ sa ] [ say ] [ SE ] [ se ] [ serve ] [ sh ] [ si ] [ Sig ] [ sig ] [ sl ] [ sleep ] [ sn ] [ so ] [ software ] [ st ] [ struct ] [ Sun ] [ T ] [ th ] [ to ] [ tr ] [ troll ] [ tt ] [ tw ] [ ua ] [ ug ] [ up ] [ us ] [ ve ] [ vi ] [ virus ] [ WD ] [ X ] [ Xt ] [ ye ] [ yt ]