computron
/kom'pyoo-tron"/ 1. A notional unit of computing power combining instruction
speed and storage capacity, dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times
megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That machine can't run
GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!" This usage is usually found in
metaphors that treat computing power as a fungible commodity good, like a crop
yield or diesel horsepower. See bitty box, Get a real computer!, toy, crank.
2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit quantity of computation or
information, in much the same way that an electron bears one unit of electric
charge (see also bogon). An elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has
been developed based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object
move more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued that an object melts because the
molecules have lost their information about where they are supposed to be (that
is, they have emitted computrons). This explains why computers get so hot and
require air conditioning; they use up computrons. Conversely, it should be
possible to cool down an object by placing it in the path of a computron beam.
It is believed that this may also explain why machines that work at the factory
fail in the computer room: the computrons there have been all used up by the
other hardware. (This theory probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories by
Larry Niven, the best known being "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", in which magic
is fuelled by an exhaustible natural resource called "mana".)
[Jargon File]
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