Multiple uses of the millifortnight (about 20 minutes) and {nanofortnight} have also been reported.
:microLenat: /mi:-kroh-len'-*t/ n. See {bogosity}.
:microReid: /mi:'kroh-reed/ n. See {bogosity}.
: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 386. Compare {X}, {sun-stools}.
:microtape: /mi:'kroh-tayp/ n. Occasionally used to mean a DECtape, as opposed to a {macrotape}. A DECtape is a small reel, about 4 inches in diameter, of magnetic tape about an inch wide. Unlike drivers for today's {macrotape}s, microtape drivers allow random access to the data, and therefore could be used to support file systems and even for swapping (this was generally done purely for {hack value}, as they were far too slow for practical use). In their heyday they were used in pretty much the same ways one would now use a floppy disk: as a small, portable way to save and transport files and programs. Apparently the term `microtape' was actually the official term used within DEC for these tapes until someone coined the word `DECtape', which, of course, sounded sexier to the {marketroid}s; another version of the story holds that someone discovered a conflict with another company's `microtape' trademark.
:middle-endian: adj. Not {big-endian} or {little-endian}. Used of perverse byte orders such as 3-4-1-2 or 2-1-4-3, occasionally found in the packed-decimal formats of minicomputer manufacturers who shall remain nameless. See {NUXI problem}.
:milliLampson: /mil'*-lamp`sn/ n. A unit of talking speed, abbreviated mL. Most people run about 200 milliLampsons. Butler Lampson (a CS theorist and systems implementor highly regarded among hackers) goes at 1000. A few people speak faster. This unit is sometimes used to compare the (sometimes widely disparate) rates at which people can generate ideas and actually emit them in speech. For example, noted computer architect C. Gordon Bell (designer of the PDP-11) is said, with some awe, to think at about 1200 mL but only talk at about 300; he is frequently reduced to fragments of sentences as his mouth tries to keep up with his speeding brain.
:minifloppies: n. 5.25-inch {vanilla} floppy disks, as opposed to 3.5-inch or {microfloppies} and the now-obsolescent 8-inch variety. At one time, this term was a trademark of Shugart Associates for their SA-400 minifloppy drive. Nobody paid any attention. See {stiffy}.
:MIPS: /mips/ [abbreviation] n. 1. A measure of computing speed; formally, `Million Instructions Per Second' (that's 10^6 per second, not 2^(20)!); often rendered by hackers as `Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed' or in other unflattering ways. This joke expresses a nearly universal attitude about the value of most {benchmark} claims, said attitude being one of the great cultural divides between hackers and {marketroid}s. The singular is sometimes `1 MIP' even though this is clearly etymologically wrong. See also {KIPS} and {GIPS}. 2. Computers, especially large computers, considered abstractly as sources of {computron}s. "This is just a workstation; the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement." 3. The corporate name of a particular RISC-chip company; among other things, they designed the processor chips used in DEC's 3100 workstation series. 4. Acronym for `Meaningless Information per Second' (a joke, prob. from sense 1).
:misbug: /mis-buhg/ [MIT] n. An unintended property of a program that turns out to be useful; something that should have been a {bug} but turns out to be a {feature}. Usage: rare. Compare {green lightning}. See {miswart}.