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wormhole /werm'hohl/ n.
[from the `wormhole' singularities hypothesized in some versions of General Relativity theory] 1. [n.,obs.] A location in a monitor which contains the address of a routine, with the specific intent of making it easy to substitute a different routine. This term is now obsolescent; modern operating systems use clusters of wormholes extensively (for modularization of I/O handling in particular, as in the Unix device-driver organization) but the preferred techspeak for these clusters is `device tables', `jump tables' or `capability tables'. 2. [Amateur Packet Radio] A network path using a commercial satellite link to join two or more amateur VHF networks. So called because traffic routed through a wormhole leaves and re-enters the amateur network over great distances with usually little clue in the message routing header as to how it got from one relay to the other. Compare [gopher hole] (sense 2).
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