:chad box: n. {Iron Age} card punches contained boxes inside them, about the size of a lunchbox (or in some models a large wastebasket), that held the {chad} (sense 2). You had to open the covers of the card punch periodically and empty the chad box. The {bit bucket} was notionally the equivalent device in the CPU enclosure, which was typically across the room in another great gray-and-blue box.
:chain: 1. [orig. from BASIC's `CHAIN' statement] vi. To hand off execution to a child or successor without going through the {OS} command interpreter that invoked it. The state of the parent program is lost and there is no returning to it. Though this facility used to be common on memory-limited micros and is still widely supported for backward compatibility, the jargon usage is semi-obsolescent; in particular, most UNIX programmers will think of this as an {exec}. Oppose the more modern {subshell}. 2. A series of linked data areas within an operating system or application. `Chain rattling' is the process of repeatedly running through the linked data areas searching for one which is of interest to the executing program. The implication is that there is a very large number of links on the chain.
:channel: [IRC] n. The basic unit of discussion on {IRC}. Once one joins a channel, everything one types is read by others on that channel. Channels can either be named with numbers or with strings that begin with a `#' sign, and can have topic descriptions (which are generally irrelevant to the actual subject of discussion). Some notable channels are `#initgame', `#hottub', and `#report'. At times of international crisis, `#report' has hundreds of members, some of whom take turns listening to various news services and summarizing the news, or in some cases, giving first-hand accounts of the action (e.g., Scud missile attacks in Tel Aviv during the Gulf War in 1991).
:channel hopping: [IRC, GEnie] n. To rapidly switch channels on {IRC}, or GEnie chat board, just as a social butterfly might hop from one group to another at a party. This may derive from the TV watcher's idiom `channel surfing'.
:channel op: /chan'l op/ [IRC] n. Someone who is endowed with privileges on a particular {IRC} channel; commonly abbreviated `chanop' or `CHOP'. These privileges include the right to {kick} users, to change various status bits, and to make others into CHOPs.
:chanop: /chan'-op/ [IRC] n. See {channel op}.
:char: /keir/ or /char/; rarely, /kar/ n. Shorthand for `character'. Esp. used by C programmers, as `char' is C's typename for character data.
:charityware: /char'it-ee-weir`/ n. Syn. {careware}.
:chase pointers: 1. vi. To go through multiple levels of indirection, as in traversing a linked list or graph structure. Used esp. by programmers in C, where explicit pointers are a very common data type. This is techspeak, but it remains jargon when used of human networks. "I'm chasing pointers. Bob said you could tell me who to talk to about…." See {dangling pointer} and {snap}. 2. [Cambridge] `pointer chase' or `pointer hunt': The process of going through a dump (interactively or on a large piece of paper printed with hex {runes}) following dynamic data-structures. Used only in a debugging context.
:check: n. A hardware-detected error condition, most commonly used to refer to actual hardware failures rather than software-induced traps. E.g., a `parity check' is the result of a hardware-detected parity error. Recorded here because it's often humorously extended to non-technical problems. For example, the term `child check' has been used to refer to the problems caused by a small child who is curious to know what happens when s/he presses all the cute buttons on a computer's console (of course, this particular problem could have been prevented with {molly-guard}s).