:zeroth: /zee'rohth/ /adj./ First. Among software designers, comes from C's and LISP's 0-based indexing of arrays. Hardware people also tend to start counting at 0 instead of 1; this is natural since, e.g., the 256 states of 8 bits correspond to the binary numbers 0, 1, …, 255 and the digital devices known as `counters' count in this way.
Hackers and computer scientists often like to call the first chapter of a publication `Chapter 0', especially if it is of an introductory nature (one of the classic instances was in the First Edition of {K&R}). In recent years this trait has also been observed among many pure mathematicians (who have an independent tradition of numbering from 0). Zero-based numbering tends to reduce {fencepost error}s, though it cannot eliminate them entirely.
:zigamorph: /zig'*-morf/ /n./ 1. Hex FF (11111111) when used as a delimiter or {fence} character. Usage: primarily at IBM shops. 2. [proposed] /n./ The Unicode non-character U+FFFF (1111111111111111), a character code which is not assigned to any character, and so is usable as end-of-string. (Unicode (a subset of ISO 10646) is a 16-bit character code intended to cover all of the world's writing systems, including Roman, Greek, Cyrillic, Chinese, hiragana, katakana, Devanagari, Ethiopic, Thai, Laotian and many other languages (support for {elvish} is planned for a future release).
:zip: /vt./ [primarily MS-DOS] To create a compressed archive from a group of files using PKWare's PKZIP or a compatible archiver. Its use is spreading now that portable implementations of the algorithm have been written. Commonly used as follows: "I'll zip it up and send it to you." See {tar and feather}.
:zipperhead: /n./ [IBM] A person with a closed mind.
:zombie: /n./ [Unix] A process that has died but has not yet relinquished its process table slot (because the parent process hasn't executed a `wait(2)' for it yet). These can be seen in `ps(1)' listings occasionally. Compare {orphan}.
:zorch: /zorch/ 1. [TMRC] /v./ To attack with an inverse heat sink. 2. [TMRC] /v./ To travel, with v approaching c [that is, with velocity approaching lightspeed —ESR]. 3. [MIT] /v./ To propel something very quickly. "The new comm software is very fast; it really zorches files through the network." 4. [MIT] /n./ Influence. Brownie points. Good karma. The intangible and fuzzy currency in which favors are measured. "I'd rather not ask him for that just yet; I think I've used up my quota of zorch with him for the week." 5. [MIT] /n./ Energy, drive, or ability. "I think I'll {punt} that change for now; I've been up for 30 hours and I've run out of zorch." 6. [MIT] /v./ To flunk an exam or course.
:Zork: /zork/ /n./ The second of the great early experiments in computer fantasy gaming; see {ADVENT}. Originally written on MIT-DM during 1977-1979, later distributed with BSD Unix (as a patched, sourceless RT-11 FORTRAN binary; see {retrocomputing}) and commercialized as `The Zork Trilogy' by {Infocom}. The FORTRAN source was later rewritten for portability and released to Usenet under the name "Dungeon". Both FORTRAN "Dungeon" and translated C versions are available at many FTP sites.
:zorkmid: /zork'mid/ /n./ The canonical unit of currency in hacker-written games. This originated in {Zork} but has spread to {nethack} and is referred to in several other games.
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