Historical note: this term derives from `bootstrap loader', a short program that was read in from cards or paper tape, or toggled in from the front panel switches. This program was always very short (great efforts were expended on making it short in order to minimize the labor and chance of error involved in toggling it in), but was just smart enough to read in a slightly more complex program (usually from a card or paper tape reader), to which it handed control; this program in turn was smart enough to read the application or operating system from a magnetic tape drive or disk drive. Thus, in successive steps, the computer `pulled itself up by its bootstraps' to a useful operating state. Nowadays the bootstrap is usually found in ROM or EPROM, and reads the first stage in from a fixed location on the disk, called the `boot block'. When this program gains control, it is powerful enough to load the actual OS and hand control over to it.

:bottom feeder: /n./ Syn. for {slopsucker}, derived from the fishermen's and naturalists' term for finny creatures who subsist on the primordial ooze.

:bottom-up implementation: /n./ Hackish opposite of the techspeak term `top-down design'. It is now received wisdom in most programming cultures that it is best to design from higher levels of abstraction down to lower, specifying sequences of action in increasing detail until you get to actual code. Hackers often find (especially in exploratory designs that cannot be closely specified in advance) that it works best to *build* things in the opposite order, by writing and testing a clean set of primitive operations and then knitting them together.

:bounce: /v./ 1. [perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check] An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification to the sender is said to `bounce'. See also {bounce message}. 2. [Stanford] To play volleyball. The now-demolished {D. C. Power Lab} building used by the Stanford AI Lab in the 1970s had a volleyball court on the front lawn. From 5 P.M. to 7 P.M. was the scheduled maintenance time for the computer, so every afternoon at 5 would come over the intercom the cry: "Now hear this: bounce, bounce!", followed by Brian McCune loudly bouncing a volleyball on the floor outside the offices of known volleyballers. 3. To engage in sexual intercourse; prob. from the expression `bouncing the mattress', but influenced by Roo's psychosexually loaded "Try bouncing me, Tigger!" from the "Winnie-the-Pooh" books. Compare {boink}. 4. To casually reboot a system in order to clear up a transient problem. Reported primarily among {VMS} users. 5. [VM/CMS programmers] *Automatic* warm-start of a machine after an error. "I logged on this morning and found it had bounced 7 times during the night" 6. [IBM] To {power cycle} a peripheral in order to reset it.

:bounce message: /n./ [Unix] Notification message returned to sender
by a site unable to relay {email} to the intended {{Internet
address}} recipient or the next link in a {bang path} (see
{bounce}, sense 1). Reasons might include a nonexistent or
misspelled username or a {down} relay site. Bounce messages can
themselves fail, with occasionally ugly results; see {sorcerer's
apprentice mode} and {software laser}. The terms `bounce
mail' and `barfmail' are also common.

:boustrophedon: /n./ [from a Greek word for turning like an ox
while plowing] An ancient method of writing using alternate
left-to-right and right-to-left lines. This term is actually
philologists' techspeak and typesetters' jargon. Erudite hackers
use it for an optimization performed by some computer typesetting
software and moving-head printers. The adverbial form
`boustrophedonically' is also found (hackers purely love
constructions like this).

:box: /n./ 1. A computer; esp. in the construction `foo box' where foo is some functional qualifier, like `graphics', or the name of an OS (thus, `Unix box', `MS-DOS box', etc.) "We preprocess the data on Unix boxes before handing it up to the mainframe." 2. [IBM] Without qualification but within an SNA-using site, this refers specifically to an IBM front-end processor or FEP /F-E-P/. An FEP is a small computer necessary to enable an IBM {mainframe} to communicate beyond the limits of the {dinosaur pen}. Typically used in expressions like the cry that goes up when an SNA network goes down: "Looks like the {box} has fallen over." (See {fall over}.) See also {IBM}, {fear and loathing}, {fepped out}, {Blue Glue}.

:boxed comments: /n./ Comments (explanatory notes attached to program instructions) that occupy several lines by themselves; so called because in assembler and C code they are often surrounded by a box in a style something like this:

/*************************************************
*
* This is a boxed comment in C style
*
*************************************************/

Common variants of this style omit the asterisks in column 2 or add
a matching row of asterisks closing the right side of the box. The
sparest variant omits all but the comment delimiters themselves;
the `box' is implied. Oppose {winged comments}.