EL1
Extensible Language One. An extensible language by B. Wegbreit of Harvard ca 1974. EL1 is internally somewhat Lisp-like, but fully typed with records and pointers. The external syntax is ALGOL-like and extensible, supporting user-defined data structures, control structures and operations. The parser is table-driven, with a modifiable set of productions. Used as the basis for the ECL operating system. ["Studies in Extensible Programming Languages", B. Wegbreit, Garland. Pub 1980].el(alpha)
Aims to be a high-level language that knows about real hardware, for systems programming. "Essential Language el(alpha) - A Reduced Expression Set Language for Systems Programming", T. Watanabe et al, SIGPLAN Notices 26(1):85-98.Elan
["Top-down Programming with Elan", C.H.A. Koster, Ellis Horwood 1987].El Camino Bignum
<humour>
/el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ The road mundanely called El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco peninsula that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City and many portions of which are still intact. Navigation on the San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which defines logical north and south even though it isn't really north-south many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford University.
The Spanish word "real" (which has two syllables: /ray-al'/) means "royal"; El Camino Real is "the royal road". In the Fortran language, a "real" quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant digits, and a "double precision" quantity is a larger floating-point number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other languages have similar "real" types). When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on "real", he started calling it "El Camino Double Precision" - but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it "El Camino Bignum", and that name has stuck. (See bignum). [Jargon File]Last updated: 1996-07-16
elder days
The heroic age of hackerdom (roughly, pre-1980); the era of the PDP-10, TECO, ITS and the ARPANET. This term has been rather consciously adopted from J. R. R. Tolkien's fantasy epic "The Lord of the Rings". Compare Iron Age. See also elvish and Great Worm. [Jargon File]e-learning
Computer-Aided InstructionElecting a Pope
(From the smoke signals given out when the guys in funny hats choose a new Pope) Causing an integrated circuit or other electronic component to emit smoke by passing too much current through it.
See magic smoke.Last updated: 1995-08-18
Electrically Alterable Programmable Read-Only Memory
<storage>
(EAPROM) A PROM whose contents can be changed.
[What's the difference between EAPROM and EEPROM?]Last updated: 1995-11-12
Electrically Erasable Programmable Read-Only Memory
<storage>
(EEPROM) A non-volatile storage device using a technique similar to the floating gates in EPROMs but with the capability to discharge the floating gate electrically. Usually bytes or words can be erased and reprogrammed individually during system operation.
In contrast to RAM, writing takes much longer than reading and EEPROM is more expensive and less dense than RAM. It is appropriate for storing small amounts of data which is changed infrequently, e.g. the hardware configuration of an Acorn Archimedes. [Difference from EAPROM?]Last updated: 1995-04-22
Electromagnetic Compatibility
(EMC) The extent to which a piece of hardware will tolerate electrical interference from other equipment, and will interfere with other equipment.
There are strict legal EMC requirements for the sale of any electrical or electronic hardware in most countries, although the actual standards differ. See, for example, EMCNet. See also Electrostatic Discharge, Radio Frequency Interference.Last updated: 1997-12-19
electromigration
Mass transport due to momentum exchange between conducting electrons and diffusing metal atoms. Electromigration causes progressive damage to the metal conductors in an integrated circuit. It is characteristic of metals at very high current density and temperatures of 100C or more.
The term was coined by Professor Hilbert Huntington in the late 1950s because he didn't like the German use of the word "electrotransport". Mass transoport occurs via the Einstein relation J=DFC/kT where F is the driving force for the transoport. For electromigraiton F is z*epj and z* is an electromigration parameter relating the momentum exchange and z is the charge of the "diffusing" species.Last updated: 1999-02-25
electron
A sub-atomic particle with a negative quantised charge. A flow of electrical current consists of the unidirectional (on average) movement of many electrons. The more mobile electrons are in a given material, the greater it electrical conductance (or equivalently, the lower its resistance).
Last updated: 1995-10-06
electronic commerce
(EC) The conducting of business communication and transactions over networks and through computers. As most restrictively defined, electronic commerce is the buying and selling of goods and services, and the transfer of funds, through digital communications. However EC also includes all inter-company and intra-company functions (such as marketing, finance, manufacturing, selling, and negotiation) that enable commerce and use electronic mail, EDI, file transfer, fax, video conferencing, workflow, or interaction with a remote computer.
Electronic commerce also includes buying and selling over the web and the Internet, electronic funds transfer, smart cards, digital cash (e.g. Mondex), and all other ways of doing business over digital networks. [Electronic Commerce Dictionary].Last updated: 1995-10-08
Electronic Commerce Dictionary
A lexicon of electronic commerce terms. It includes over 900 terms and acronyms, and over 200 website addresses. It has entries on commerce over the World-Wide Web, Internet payment systems, The National Information Infrastructure, Electronic Data Interchange, Electronic Funds Transfer, Public Key Cryptography, smart cards and digital cash, computer and network security for commerce, marketing through electronic media.
http://tedhaynes.com/haynes1/intro.html.Last updated: 1999-03-24
electronic data interchange
(EDI) The exchange of standardised document forms between computer systems for business use. EDI is part of electronic commerce.
EDI is most often used between different companies ("trading partners") and uses some variation of the ANSI X12 standard (USA) or EDIFACT (UN sponsored global standard). [Electronic Commerce Dictionary].Last updated: 1995-10-06
Electronic Data Processing
<application, data processing>
1. (EDP) data processing by computers.
<company>
2. The name of Honeywell's computer business between 1960, when it gained complete ownership of Datamatic Corporation, and 1963, when it was officially renamed Honeywell Inc.
Last updated: 1995-03-30
Electronic Design Automation
(EDA) Software tools for the development of integrated circuits and systems.
Companies selling EDA tools include Cadence, Intergraph, Mentor, Synopsys, Viewlogic. Zuken-Redac Dazix has been acquired by Intergraph.Last updated: 1995-10-09
Electronic Discrete Sequential Automatic Computer
(EDSAC, often "Electronic Delay Storage Automatic Computer") Based upon the EDVAC (Electronic Discrete Variable Automatic Computer) designed in 1945, the EDSAC was completed in 1949 at the University of Cambridge Mathematical Laboratory in England. The EDSAC performed its first calculation on 1949-05-06. EDSAC was considered to be the first computer to store programs. It ceased to exist in about 1951.
[What happened to it?]Last updated: 2010-01-07
Electronic Frontier Foundation
<body>
(EFF) A group established to address social and legal issues arising from the impact on society of the increasingly pervasive use of computers as a means of communication and information distribution. EFF is a non-profit civil liberties public interest organisation working to protect freedom of expression, privacy, and access to on-line resources and information.
http://eff.org/.Last updated: 1994-12-08
electronic funds transfer
(EFT, EFTS, - system) Transfer of money initiated through electronic terminal, automated teller machine, computer, telephone, or magnetic tape. In the late 1990s, this increasingly includes transfer initiated via the web. The term also applies to credit card and automated bill payments.
Glossary.Last updated: 1999-12-08
Electronic Funds Transfer Point of Sale
A method of electronic payment which allows money to be transferred from the account of the shopper to the merchant in close-to real-time. Generally the shopper will give the merchant a credit or debit card, which will be swiped to obtain the account information. The shopper will then be required to either sign a receipt or enter a PIN via a keypad to authorise the transaction.
Last updated: 2003-06-22
electronic funds transfer system
electronic funds transferelectronic magazine
<messaging, publication, web>
(e-zine) A regular publication on some particular topic distributed in digital form, chiefly now via the web but also by electronic mail or floppy disk. E-zines are often distributed for free by enthusiasts.
Last updated: 1996-08-04
electronic mail
(e-mail) Messages automatically passed from one computer user to another, often through computer networks and/or via modems over telephone lines.
A message, especially one following the common RFC 822 standard, begins with several lines of headers, followed by a blank line, and the body of the message. Most e-mail systems now support the MIME standard which allows the message body to contain "attachments" of different kinds rather than just one block of plain ASCII text. It is conventional for the body to end with a signature. Headers give the name and electronic mail address of the sender and recipient(s), the time and date when it was sent and a subject. There are many other headers which may get added by different message handling systems during delivery. The message is "composed" by the sender, usually using a special program - a "Mail User Agent" (MUA). It is then passed to some kind of "Message Transfer Agent" (MTA) - a program which is responsible for either delivering the message locally or passing it to another MTA, often on another host. MTAs on different hosts on a network often communicate using SMTP. The message is eventually delivered to the recipient's mailbox - normally a file on his computer - from where he can read it using a mail reading program (which may or may not be the same MUA as used by the sender). Contrast snail-mail, paper-net, voice-net. The form "email" is also common, but is less suggestive of the correct pronunciation and derivation than "e-mail". The word is used as a noun for the concept ("Isn't e-mail great?", "Are you on e-mail?"), a collection of (unread) messages ("I spent all night reading my e-mail"), and as a verb meaning "to send (something in) an e-mail message" ("I'll e-mail you (my report)"). The use of "an e-mail" as a count noun for an e-mail message, and plural "e-mails", is now (2000) also well established despite the fact that "mail" is definitely a mass noun. Oddly enough, the word "emailed" is actually listed in the Oxford English Dictionary. It means "embossed (with a raised pattern) or arranged in a net work". A use from 1480 is given. The word is derived from French "emmailleure", network. Also, "email" is German for enamel. The story of the first e-mail message. How data travels around the worldLast updated: 2014-10-07
electronic mail address
(Usually "e-mail address") The string used to specify the source or destination of an electronic mail message. E.g. "[email protected]".
The RFC 822 standard is probably the most widely used on the Internet. X.400 was once used in Europe and Canada. UUCP-style (bang path) addresses or other kinds of source route became virtually extinct in the 1990s. In the example above, "john" is the local part which is the name of a mailbox on the destination computer. If the sender and recipient use the same computer, or the same LAN, for electronic mail then the local part is usually all that is required. If they use different computers, e.g. they work at different companies or use different Internet service providers, then the "host part", e.g. "sales.acme.com" must be appended after an "@". This usually takes the form of a fully qualified domain name or, within a large organisation, it may be just the hostname part, e.g. "sales". The destination computer named by the host part is usually a server of some kind rather than an individual's workstation or PC. The user's mail is stored on the server and read later via client mail software running on the user's computer. Large organisations, such as universities will often set up a global alias directory which maps a simple user name such as "jsmith" to an address which contains more information such as "[email protected]". This hides the detailed knowledge of where the message will be delivered from the sender, making it much easier to redirect mail if a user leaves or moves to a different department for example.Last updated: 2014-10-07
electronic mail client
Mail User Agentelectronic meeting
The use of a network of personal computers to improve communication that takes place in a meeting. Electronic meetings are effective with as few as two participants and with over 100 participants. Participants can be face-to-face in a meeting room or distributed around the world. They may all be participating at the same time or different times.
Getting Results from Electronic Meetings.Last updated: 2014-09-20
Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer
<computer>
(ENIAC) The first electronic digital computer and an ancestor of most computers in use today. ENIAC was developed by Dr. John Mauchly and J. Presper Eckert during World War II at the Moore School of the University of Pennsylvania.
In 1940 Dr. John Vincent Atanasoff attended a lecture by Mauchly and subsequently agreed to show him his binary calculator, the Atanasoff-Berry Computer (ABC), which was partially built between 1937-1942. Mauchly used ideas from the ABC in the design of ENIAC, which was started in June 1943 and released publicly in 1946. ENIAC was not the first digital computer, Konrad Zuse's Z3 was released in 1941. Though, like the ABC, the Z3 was electromechanical rather than electronic, it was freely programmable via paper tape whereas ENIAC was only programmable by manual rewiring or switches. Z3 used binary representation like modern computers whereas ENIAC used decimal like mechanical calculators. ENIAC was underwritten and its development overseen by Lieutenant Herman Goldstine of the U.S. Army Ballistic Research Laboratory (BRL). While the prime motivation for constructing the machine was to automate the wartime production of firing and bombing tables, the very first program run on ENIAC was a highly classified computation for Los Alamos. Later applications included weather prediction, cosmic ray studies, wind tunnel design, petroleum exploration, and optics. ENIAC had 20 registers made entirely from vacuum tubes. It had no other no memory as we currently understand it. The machine performed an addition in 200 microseconds, a multiplication in about three milliseconds, and a division in about 30 milliseconds. John von Neumann, a world-renowned mathematician serving on the BRL Scientific Advisory Committee, soon joined the developers of ENIAC and made some critical contributions. While Mauchly, Eckert and the Penn team continued on the technological problems, he, Goldstine, and others took up the logical problems. In 1947, while working on the design for the successor machine, EDVAC, von Neumann realized that ENIAC's lack of a central control unit could be overcome to obtain a rudimentary stored program computer (see the Clippinger reference below). Modifications were undertaken that eventually led to an instruction set of 92 "orders". Von Neumann also proposed the fetch-execute cycle. [R. F. Clippinger, "A Logical Coding System Applied to the ENIAC", Ballistic Research Laboratory Report No. 673, Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, September 1948. http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/48eniac-coding]. [H. H. Goldstine, "The Computer from Pascal to von Neumann", Princeton University Press, 1972]. [K. Kempf, "Electronic Computers within the Ordnance Corps", Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, 1961. http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/61ordnance]. [M. H. Weik, "The ENIAC Story", J. American Ordnance Assoc., 1961. http://ftp.arl.mil/~mike/comphist/eniac-story.html]. [How "general purpose" was ENIAC, compared to Zuse's Z3?]Last updated: 2003-10-01
Electronic Performance Support System
<tool>
(EPSS) A system that provides electronic task guidance and support to the user at the moment of need. EPSS can provide application help, reference information, guided instructions and/or tutorials, subject matter expert advice and hints on how to perform a task more efficiently. An EPSS can combine various technologies to present the desired information. The information can be in the form of text, graphical displays, sound, and video presentations.
["Electronic Performance Support Systems: How and Why to Remake the Workplace Through the Strategic Application of Technology", Gloria Gerry, Weingarten Press].Last updated: 1997-10-24
Electronic Piece Of Cheese
EPOCElectronic Report Management
<storage>
(ERM, Enterprise Report Management) The capture, archiving and publishing, in digital form, of (typically mainframe generated) documents such as accounting and financial reports. ERM often replaces systems based on paper or microfilm.
ERM usually captures data from print streams and stores it on hard drives, storage area networks or optical disk drives. The data is indexed and can be retreived at the desktop with a web browser or a fat client. ERM systems are part of enterprise content management or electronic document management. An example application is PearlDoc QuickFile Information Management System (IMS). An early replacement for greenbar printed reports was Computer Output on Microfilm (COM, not to be confused with Microsoft's Component Object Model). This was superseded by Computer Output to Laser Disk (or Disc - COLD) which used optical media. In 1999 the AIIM renamed COLD to ERM/COLD to reflect the variety of media in use. This was promoted, in 2002, by Mason Grigsby - widely reputed as "The Father of COLD" for his seminal work with INSCI in the late 1980s. Judging from their website, AIIM don't seem too sure whether ERM is "Electronic", "Enterprise" or both.Last updated: 2007-07-25
Electronics Industry Association
(EIA) A body which publishes "Recommended Standards" (RS) for physical devices and their means of interfacing. EIA-232 is their standard that defines a computer's serial port, connector pin-outs, and electrical signaling.
Last updated: 1995-03-02
electronic whiteboarding
Audiographic Teleconferencingelectron model
A model of semiconductor behaviour in which donors contribute the charge of an electron, and acceptors contribute a space for same, in effect contributing a fictional positive charge of similiar magnitude. Physicists use the electron model. Some language theorists consider language and the electron to be models in themselves.
Contrast hole model.Last updated: 1995-10-06
electron tube
(Or tube, vacuum tube, UK: valve, electron valve, thermionic valve, firebottle, glassfet) An electronic component consisting of a space exhausted of gas to such an extent that electrons may move about freely, and two or more electrodes with external connections. Nearly all tubes are of the thermionic type where one electrode, called the cathode, is heated, and electrons are emitted from its surface with a small energy (typically a Volt or less). A second electrode, called the anode (plate) will attract the electrons when it is positive with respect to the cathode, allowing current in one direction but not the other.
In types which are used for amplification of signals, additional electrodes, called grids, beam-forming electrodes, focussing electrodes and so on according to their purpose, are introduced between cathode and plate and modify the flow of electrons by electrostatic attraction or (usually) repulsion. A voltage change on a grid can control a substantially greater change in that between cathode and anode. Unlike semiconductors, except perhaps for FETs, the movement of electrons is simply a function of electrostatic field within the active region of the tube, and as a consequence of the very low mass of the electron, the currents can be changed quickly. Moreover, there is no limit to the current density in the space, and the electrodes which do dissapate power are usually metal and can be cooled with forced air, water, or other refrigerants. Today these features cause tubes to be the active device of choice when the signals to be amplified are a power levels of more than about 500 watts. The first electronic digital computers used hundreds of vacuum tubes as their active components which, given the reliability of these devices, meant the computers needed frequent repairs to keep them operating. The chief causes of unreliability are the heater used to heat the cathode and the connector into which the tube was plugged. Vacuum tube manufacturers in the US are nearly a thing of the past, with the exception of the special purpose types used in broadcast and image sensing and displays. Eimac, GE, RCA, and the like would probably refer to specific types such as "Beam Power Tetrode" and the like, and rarely use the generic terms. The cathode ray tube is a special purpose type based on these principles which is used for the visual display in television and computers. X-ray tubes are diodes (two element tubes) used at high voltage; a tungsten anode emits the energetic photons when the energetic electrons hit it. Magnetrons use magnetic fields to constrain the electrons; they provide very simple, high power, ultra-high frequency signals for radar, microwave ovens, and the like. Klystrons amplify signals at high power and microwave frequencies.Last updated: 1996-02-05
Electrostatic Discharge
(ESD) One kind of test that hardware usually has to pass to prove it is suitable for sale and use. The hardware must still work after is has been subjected to some level of electrostatic discharge. Some organisations have their own ESD requirements which hardware must meet before it will be considered for purchase.
Different countries have different legal regulations about levels of ESD. See also Radio Frequency Interference, Electromagnetic Compatibility.Last updated: 1997-12-19
elegant
(From Mathematics) Combining simplicity, power, and a certain ineffable grace of design. Higher praise than "clever", "winning" or even cuspy. The French aviator, adventurer, and author Antoine de Saint-Exup'ery, probably best known for his classic children's book "The Little Prince", was also an aircraft designer. He gave us perhaps the best definition of engineering elegance when he said "A designer knows he has achieved perfection not when there is nothing left to add, but when there is nothing left to take away." [Jargon File]Last updated: 1994-11-29
element
<data, programming>
1. One of the items of data in an array.
2. One kind of node in an SGML, HTML, or XML document tree. An SGML element is typically represented by a start tag ("<p>") and an end tag ("</p>"). In some SGML implementations, some tags are omissible, as with "</p>" in HTML.
The start tag can contain attributes ("<p lang="en-UK" class='stuff'>"), which are an unordered set of key-value bindings for that element. Both the start tag and end tag for an element typically contain the "tag name" (also called the "GI" or generic identifier) for that element. In XML, an element is always represented either by an explicit start tag and end tag, or by an empty element tag ("<img src='thing.png' alt='a dodad' />"). Other kinds of SGML node are: a section of character data ("foo"), a comment ("<!-- bar -->"), a markup declaration ("<!ENTITY reg CDATA '®'>"), or a processing instruction ("<?xml-stylesheet href="shop-english.xsl" type="text/xsl" ?>").Last updated: 2001-01-30
elephant
Large, grey, four-legged mammal.elephantine
Used of programs or systems that are both conspicuous hogs (owing perhaps to poor design founded on brute force and ignorance) and exceedingly hairy in source form. An elephantine program may be functional and even friendly, but (as in the old joke about being in bed with an elephant) it's tough to have around all the same (and, like a pachyderm, difficult to maintain). In extreme cases, hackers have been known to make trumpeting sounds or perform expressive proboscatory mime at the mention of the offending program. Usage: semi-humorous. Compare "has the elephant nature" and the somewhat more pejorative monstrosity. See also second-system effect and baroque. [Jargon File]elevator controller
An archetypal dumb embedded-systems application, like toaster (which superseded it). During one period (1983--84) in the deliberations of ANSI X3J11 (the C standardisation committee) this was the canonical example of a really stupid, memory-limited computation environment. "You can't require "printf(3)" to be part of the default run-time library - what if you're targeting an elevator controller?" Elevator controllers became important rhetorical weapons on both sides of several holy wars.ELF
Binary format used by System V Release 4 Unix.ELI
<language>
1. An early system on the IBM 705 and IBM 650.
[Listed in CACM 2(5):16 (May 1959)]. 2. Embedded Lisp Interpreter.Eli Compiler Construction System
<tool>
A compiler generation package which integrates off-the-shelf tools and libraries with specialised language processors to generate complete compilers quickly and reliably. It simplifies the development of new special-purpose languages, implementation of existing languages on new hardware and extension of the constructs and features of existing languages.
It runs on Sun-4 SunOS 4, 5, Ultrix/MIPS, RS/6000, HP-UX, SGI, Linux. Colorado U. Europe. Mailing list: <[email protected]>. E-mail: <[email protected]>, Developers <[email protected]>, Users <[email protected]>.Last updated: 2000-08-12
ELISP
<language>
1. A Lisp variant originally implemented for DEC-20s by Chuck Hedrick of Rutgers.
<language>
2. A common abbreviation for Emacs Lisp. Use of this abbreviation is discouraged because "Elisp" is or was a trademark.
[Still a trademark? Whose?]Last updated: 1995-04-04
elite
<security>
1. A term used to describe skilled crackers or hackers, or their deeds. In the last sense, compare to elegant.
The term is also used to describe exclusive forums (ftp sites, BBSs) used for trading pirated software, cracking tools, or phreaking codes.Last updated: 1997-01-31
ELIZA
A famous program by Joseph Weizenbaum, which simulated a Rogerian psychoanalyst by rephrasing many of the patient's statements as questions and posing them to the patient. It worked by simple pattern recognition and substitution of key words into canned phrases. It was so convincing, however, that there are many anecdotes about people becoming very emotionally caught up in dealing with ELIZA. All this was due to people's tendency to attach to words meanings which the computer never put there.
See also ELIZA effect.Last updated: 1997-09-13
ELIZA effect
<jargon>
/e-li:'z* *-fekt'/ (From ELIZA) The tendency of humans to attach associations to terms from prior experience. For example, there is nothing magic about the symbol "+" that makes it well-suited to indicate addition; it's just that people associate it with addition. Using "+" or "plus" to mean addition in a computer language is taking advantage of the ELIZA effect.
The ELIZA effect is a Good Thing when writing a programming language, but it can blind you to serious shortcomings when analysing an Artificial Intelligence system. Compare ad-hockery; see also AI-complete. [Jargon File]Last updated: 1997-09-13
Elk
Extension Language KitELLA
A hardware design language from DRA Malvern. Implemented in ALGOL68-RS. E-mail: <[email protected]>. SPARC version. ["ELLA 2000: A Language for Electronic System Design", J.D. Morison and A.S. Clarke, McGraw-Hill 1993].Ellemtel
A C++ style-guide originated by Ellemtel Telecom Systems, Stockholm.Ellie
<language>
An object-oriented language with fine-grained parallelism for distributed computing. Ellie is based on BETA, Smalltalk, and others. Parallelism is supported by unbounded RPC and "future" objects. Synchronisation is by dynamic interfaces. Classes, methods, blocks, and objects are all modelled by first-class "Ellie objects". It supports genericity, polymorphism, and delegation/inheritance.
http://diku.dk/ellie/papers/? ["Ellie Language Definition Report", Birger Andersen <[email protected]>, SIGPLAN Notices 25(11):45-65, Nov 1990].Last updated: 2000-04-02
ELLIS
EuLisp LInda System. An object-oriented Linda system written for EuLisp. "Using Object-Oriented Mechanisms to Describe Linda", P. Broadbery <[email protected]> et al, in Linda-Like Systems and Their Implementation, G. Wilson ed, U Edinburgh TR 91-13, 1991.elm
A full-screen MUA for Unix, MS-DOS, MS Windows, and OS/2.
Usenet newsgroup: comp.mail.elm. FAQ.Last updated: 1996-03-20
ELMAGUIDE
<language>
The metalanguage used for interpretation of user actions in the ELMA compiler writer developed at Tallinn Poly Institute in 1978.
Last updated: 1996-03-20
ELMAMETA
A Fortran extension, written at the Tallinn Poly Inst in 1978, used for lexical, syntactic and semantic sepecification in the ELMA compiler writer. This system was widely used in the Soviet Union, and produced an Ada to Diana compiler.Last updated: 1994-12-08
ELP
1. English Language Programs. Language for testing avionics equipment, on Varian 620/i. "Multiband Automatic test Equipment - A Computer Controlled Checkout System", T. Kuroda et al, Proc SJCC, 38 (1971). 2. Equational Logic Programming. A semantically pure, fully lazy language by M.J. O'Donnell <[email protected]>. Sun and DEC versions. ["Equational Logic as a Programming Language", M.J. O'Donnell, MIT Press 1985].ELSIE
<language>
A distributed version of ELLIS.
["Using Object-Oriented Mechanisms to Describe Linda", P. Broadbery <[email protected]> et al, in "Linda-Like Systems and Their Implementati"on, G. Wilson ed, U Edinburgh TR 91-13, 1991].Last updated: 1995-11-16
Elvis
<tool>
A vi lookalike which supports nearly all of the vi/ex commands, in both visual mode and colon mode.
Like vi/ex, elvis stores most of the text in a temporary file instead of RAM. This allows it to edit files that are too large to fit in a single process' data space. Elvis runs under BSD UNIX, AT&T SysV UNIX, MINIX, MS-DOS, Atari TOS, Coherent, OS9/68000, VMS, Windows 95 and Windows NT. Elvis is just as awful to use as vi, so someone will like it. Version 1.8pl14 (1995-09-04). FTP Delft, FTP PDX. E-mail: Steve Kirkendall <[email protected]>.Last updated: 1995-11-16
elvish
1. The Tengwar of Feanor, a table of letterforms resembling the beautiful Celtic half-uncial hand of the "Book of Kells". Invented and described by J.R.R. Tolkien in "The Lord of The Rings" as an orthography for his fictional "elvish" languages, this system (which is both visually and phonetically elegant) has long fascinated hackers (who tend to be intrigued by artificial languages in general). It is traditional for graphics printers, plotters, window systems, and the like to support a Feanorian typeface as one of their demo items. By extension, the term might be used for any odd or unreadable typeface produced by a graphics device.
2. The typeface mundanely called "B"ocklin", an art-decoish display font. [Why?] [Jargon File]Last updated: 1998-04-28
Nearby terms:
EISA ♦ EJB ♦ Eksi Sozluk ♦ EL1 ♦ el(alpha) ♦ Elan ♦ El Camino Bignum ♦ elder days
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