frogging
(University of Waterloo) 1. Partial corruption of a text file or input stream by
some bug or consistent glitch, as opposed to random events like line noise or
media failures. Might occur, for example, if one bit of each incoming character
on a tty were stuck, so that some characters were correct and others were not.
See terminak for a historical example.
2. By extension, accidental display of text in a mode where the output device
emits special symbols or mnemonics rather than conventional ASCII. This often
happens, for example, when using a terminal or comm program on a device like an
IBM PC with a special "high-half" character set and with the bit-parity
assumption wrong. A hacker sufficiently familiar with ASCII bit patterns might
be able to read the display anyway.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
frobnicate « frobnitz « Frobozz Magic Programming
Language «
frogging » Frolic » front end » front-end
processor
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