1. <software> General synonym for crash except that it is
not used as a noun. Especially used of software or OS
failures. "Don't run Empire with less than 32K stack, it'll
bomb".
2. <operating system> Atari ST and Macintosh equivalents
of a Unix "panic" or Amiga guru, in which icons of
little black-powder bombs or mushroom clouds are displayed,
indicating that the system has died. On the Macintosh, this
may be accompanied by a decimal (or occasionally
hexadecimal) number indicating what went wrong, similar to
the Amiga guru meditation number. MS-DOS computers tend
to lock up in this situation.
3. <software> A piece of code embedded in a program that
remains dormant until it is triggered. Logic bombs are
triggered by an event whereas time bombs are triggered either
after a set amount of time has elapsed, or when a specific
date is reached.
[Jargon File]
(1996-12-08)
Nearby terms:
boink « BOLERO « Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc. « bomb » bon » bondage-and-discipline language » bonk/oif
