Related:

• hysterical reasons n. (also `hysterical raisins') A variant on the stock phrase "for historical reaso
  indicating specifically that something must be done in some stupid way for backwards compatibility, and moreover that the feature it must be compatible with was the result of a bad design in the first place....
• bug-compatible: adj. Said of a design or revision that has been badly compromised by a requirement to be compatible with {fossil}s or {misfeature}s in other programs or (esp.
  ) previous releases of itself. "MS-DOS 2.0 used \ as a path separator to be bug-compatible with some cretin's choice of / as an option character in 1....
• bug-for-bug compatible: n. Same as {bug-compatible}, with the additional implication that much tedious effort went into ensuring that each (known) bug was replicated.
  -- The AI Hackers Dictionary...
• green lightning: [IBM] n. 1. Apparently random flashing streaks on the face of 3278-9 terminals while a new symbol set is being downloaded.
  This hardware bug was left deliberately unfixed, as some genius within IBM suggested it would let the user know that `something is happening'....
• Microsloth Windows: /mi:'kroh-sloth` win'dohz/ n. Hackerism for `Microsoft Windows'
  a windowing system for the IBM-PC which is so limited by bug-for-bug compatibility with {mess-dos} that it is agonizingly slow on anything less than a fast 486....
• fossil: n. 1. In software, a misfeature that becomes understandable only in historical context, as a remnant of times past retained so as not to break compatibility.
  Example: the retention of octal as default base for string escapes in {C}, in spite of the better match of hexadecimal to ASCII and modern byte-addressable architectures....
• amurai: n. A hacker who hires out for legal cracking job
  snooping for factions in corporate political fights, lawyers pursuing privacy-rights and First Amendment cases, and other parties with legitimate reasons to need an electronic locksmith....
• That's not a bug, that's a feature!: The {canonical} first parry in a debate about a purported bug.
  The complainant, if unconvinced, is likely to retort that the bug is then at best a {misfeature}....
• Nothing is 100% certain, bug free or IBM compatible.