Related:

• one knives and bearskins n. [from the Star Trek Classic episode "The City on the Edge of Forever"] A term traditionally used to describe (and deprecate) computing environments that are grotesquely primitive in light of what is known about good ways to design things.
  As in "Don't get too used to the facilities here....
• Spock: "I'm attempting to construct a mnemonic memory circuit, using stone knives and bearskins.
  -- "The City On The Edge Of Forever", Stardate...
• code grinder: n. 1. A {suit}-wearing minion of the sort hired in legion strength by banks and insurance companies to implement payroll packages in RPG and other such unspeakable horrors.
  In its native habitat, the code grinder often removes the suit jacket to reveal an underplumage consisting of button-down shirt (starch optional) and a tie....
• multitask: n. Often used of humans in the same meaning it has for computers, to describe a person doing several things at once (but see {thrash}).
  The term `multiplex', from communications technology (meaning to handle more than one channel at the same time), is used similarly....
• mart terminal: n. 1. A terminal that has enough computing capability to render graphics or to offload some kind of front-end processing from the computer it talks to.
  The development of workstations and personal computers has made this term and the product it describes semi-obsolescent, but one may still hear variants of the phrase `act like a smart terminal' used to describe the behavior of workstations or PCs with respect to programs that execute almost entirely out of a remote {server}'s storage, using said devices as displays....
• wannabee /won'*-bee/ n. (also, more plausibly, spelled `wannabe') [from a term recently used to describe Madonna fans who dress, talk, and act like their idol
  prob. originally from biker slang] A would-be hacker....
• casting the runes: n. What a {guru} does when you ask him or her to run a particular program and type at it because it never works for anyone else
  esp. used when nobody can ever see what the guru is doing different from what J....
• eam-powered: adj. Old-fashioned or underpowered; archaic.
  This term does not have a strong negative loading and may even be used semi-affectionately for something that clanks and wheezes a lot but hangs in there doing the job....
• bare metal n. 1. [common] New computer hardware, unadorned with such snares and delusions as an operating system, an bit bashing needed to create these basic tools for a new machine.
  Real bare-metal programming involves things like building boot proms and BIOS chips, implementing basic monitors used to test device drivers, and writing the assemblers that will be used to write the compiler back ends that will give the new machine a real development environment....