Nominal Semidestructor: n. Soundalike slang for `National Semiconductor',

:Nominal Semidestructor: n. Soundalike slang for `National
Semiconductor', found among other places in the 4.3BSD networking
sources. During the late 1970s to mid-1980s this company marketed
a series of microprocessors including the NS16000 and NS32000 and
several variants. At one point early in the great microprocessor
race, the specs on these chips made them look like serious
competition for the rising Intel 80x86 and Motorola 680x0 series.
Unfortunately, the actual parts were notoriously flaky and never
implemented the full instruction set promised in their literature,
apparently because the company couldn't get any of the mask
steppings to work as designed. They eventually sank without trace,
joining the Zilog Z8000 and a few even more obscure also-rans in
the graveyard of forgotten microprocessors. Compare {HP-SUX},
{AIDX}, {buglix}, {Macintrash}, {Telerat}, {Open
DeathTrap}, {ScumOS}, {sun-stools}.
-- The AI Hackers Dictionary