<abuse> Slang for "National Semiconductor", found among
other places in the 4.3BSD networking sources. During the
late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed a series of
microprocessors including the National Semiconductor 16000
and National Semiconductor 32000. At one point early in the
great microprocessor race, the specs on these chips made
them look like serious competition for the rising Intel
80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series. Unfortunately, the actual
parts were notoriously flaky and never implemented the full
instruction set promised in their literature, apparently
because the company couldn't get any of the mask steppings
to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace,
joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure
also-rans in the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors.
