<humour, operating system> An ironic term used to describe
long response time, particularly with respect to MS-DOS
system calls (which ought to require only a tiny fraction of
a second to execute). Such response time is a major incentive
for programmers to write programs that are not well-behaved.
See also PC-ism.
[Jargon File]
(1996-12-17)
Nearby terms:
SAM76 « Samba « SAME « same-day service » SAMeDL » samizdat » Sammet, Jean E.