dumbed down
<jargon>
Simplified, with a strong connotation of *over*simplified. Often, a marketroid will insist that the interfaces and documentation of software be dumbed down after the designer has burned untold gallons of midnight oil making it smart. This creates friction.
See user-friendly.Last updated: 1995-04-14
dumb terminal
<hardware>
A type of terminal that consists of a keyboard and a display screen that can be used to enter and transmit data to, or display data from, a computer to which it is connected. A dumb terminal, in contrast to an intelligent terminal, has no independent processing capability or auxiliary storage and thus cannot function as a stand-alone device.
The dumbest kind of terminal is a glass tty. The next step up has a minimally addressable cursor but no on-screen editing or other features normally supported by an intelligent terminal. Once upon a time, when glass ttys were common and addressable cursors were something special, what is now called a dumb terminal could pass for a smart terminal. [Examples?] [Jargon File]Last updated: 1995-04-14
Nearby terms:
duff ♦ Duff's device ♦ dumbed down ♦ dumb terminal ♦ dump ♦ dumpster diving
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