[Acronym from the scene in the film
version of "The Wizard of Oz" in which the true nature of the
wizard is first discovered: "Pay no attention to the man behind
the curtain."] 1. A stage of development of a process or function
that, owing to incomplete implementation or to the complexity of
the system, requires human interaction to simulate or replace some
or all of the actions, inputs, or outputs of the process or
function. 2. Of or pertaining to a process or function whose
apparent operations are wholly or partially falsified.
3. Requiring prestidigitization.
The ultimate pnambic product was "Dan Bricklin's Demo", a program
which supported flashy user-interface design prototyping. There is
a related maxim among hackers: "Any sufficiently advanced
technology is indistinguishable from a rigged demo." See
magic, sense 1, for illumination of this point.
