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31-letter words containing o, r, t, l, a, n

  • illinois functional programming — (language)   (IFP) An interpreter written in portable C by Arch D. Robison for a variant of Backus's FP with syntax like ALGOL or Modula-2. IFP Runs under Unix, CTSS (Cray) and MS-DOS. Version: 0.5.
  • immigration and nationality act — McCarran-Walter Act.
  • industrial workers of the world — an international industrial labor union, considered radical by many, that was organized in Chicago in 1905 and that disintegrated after 1920. Abbreviation: I.W.W., IWW.
  • information processing language — (IPL) Said to be the first list-processing language, also the first language to support recursion. Written by Allen Newell, J.C. Shaw and H. Simon at Carnegie ca. 1956. It was very low level. Versions: IPL-I (never implemented), IPL-II (1957 for JOHNNIAC), IPL-III (existed briefly), IPL-IV, IPL-V (1958, for IBM 650, IBM 704, IBM 7090, many others. Widely used), IPL-VI.
  • international business machines — (company)   (IBM) The best known American computer manufacturer, founded by Thomas J. Watson (born 1874-02-17), known as "Big Blue" after the colour of its logo. IBM makes everything from mainframes to personal computers (PCs) and has been immensely successful in selling them, chiefly to business. It has often been said that "Nobody has ever been sacked for buying IBM". The IBM PC in its various versions has been so successful that unqualified reference to a "PC" almost certainly means a PC from IBM, or one of the many brands of clone produced by other manufacturers to cash in on IBM's original success. Alternative expansions of "IBM" such as Inferior But Marketable; It's Better Manually; Insidious Black Magic; It's Been Malfunctioning; Incontinent Bowel Movement, illustrate the considerable antipathy most hackers have long felt toward the "industry leader" (see fear and loathing). Quarterly sales $15351M, profits $689M (Aug 1994).
  • international olympic committee — the committee, composed of all the national Olympic committees, that organizes the modern Olympic games
  • international phonetic alphabet — the set of symbols and modifiers designed, principally on the basis of articulatory considerations, to provide a consistent and universally understood system for transcribing the speech sounds of any language: devised by the International Phonetic Association. Abbreviation: IPA, I.P.A.
  • international temperature scale — a Celsius scale for use in measuring temperatures above −183°C in which specified values are assigned to the ice point, steam point, and melting point of gold, silver, and antimony and the boiling point of sulfur and of oxygen.
  • java 2 software development kit — (language, programming)   (Java 2 SDK) Sun's tools to develop Java applications, part of the Java 2 Platform. Versions prior to 1.2 were known as the Java Development Kit (JDK).
  • joint and last survivor annuity — an annuity payable until the death of the last of two or more designated persons, though sometimes with reduced amounts after the first such person dies.
  • kara-kalpak autonomous republic — an autonomous republic in NW Uzbekistan. 63,938 sq. mi. (165,600 sq. km). Capital: Nukas.
  • last but one/last but three etc — You can use phrases such as the last but one, the last but two, or the last but three, to refer to the thing or person that is, for example, one, two, or three before the final person or thing in a group or series.
  • link access protocol for modems — (LAPM) The Automatic Repeat Request system used in the V.42 protocol.
  • management selection procedures — steps in place to select candidates applying to or within an organization to become managers
  • multi-user shared hallucination — (communications, application)   (MUSH) A user-extendable MUD. A MUSH provides commands which the players can use to construct new rooms or make objects and puzzles for other players to explore.
  • nakhichevan autonomous republic — a region belonging to Azerbaijan, from which it is separated by part of Armenia; annexed by Russia in 1828; unilaterally declared secession from the Soviet Union in 1990. Capital: Nakhichevan. Pop: 363 000 (2000 est). Area: 5500 sq km (2120 sq miles)
  • national endowment for the arts — an independent agency that stimulates the growth and development of the arts in the U.S. by awarding grants to individuals and organizations.
  • national organization for women — a women's rights organization founded in 1966. Abbreviation: NOW.
  • netbios frames control protocol — (protocol)   (NBFCP, NBF protocol, originally "NetBEUI protocol")
  • niceno-constantinopolitan creed — a formal statement of the chief tenets of Christian belief, adopted by the first Nicene Council.
  • not all sth is cracked up to be — If you say that something is not all it's cracked up to be, you mean that it is not as good as other people have said it is.
  • old lady of threadneedle street — the Bank of England (used as a nickname).
  • operational test and evaluation — (testing)   (OT&E) Formal testing conducted prior to deployment to evaluate the operational effectiveness and suitability of the system with respect to its mission.
  • original equipment manufacturer — a firm that purchases complex equipment, as computers, from manufacturers and modifies or combines different components for resale.
  • personal communication services — (communications)   (PCS) Telecommunications services that bundle voice communications, numeric and text messaging, voice-mail and various other features into one device, service contract and bill. PCS are carried over cellular links, most often digital.
  • property and casualty insurance — Property and casualty insurance is insurance on homes, cars, and businesses, rather than health or life insurance.
  • put all your eggs in one basket — rely on a single plan
  • put someone in his or her place — to humble someone who is arrogant, conceited, forward, etc
  • quadrature amplitude modulation — (QAM) A method for encoding digital data in an analog signal in which each combination of phase and amplitude represents one of sixteen four bit patterns. This is required for fax transmission at 9600 bits per second.
  • secondary sexual characteristic — any of various features distinguishing individuals of different sex but not directly concerned in reproduction. Examples are the antlers of a stag and the beard of a man
  • secretary of state for scotland — the head of the Scotland Office; the principal minister in the UK government who has responsibility for Scotland
  • see the handwriting on the wall — to foresee impending disaster or misfortune: Dan. 5:5-28
  • self-addressed stamped envelope — an envelope that is addressed and carries sufficient stamps for return to the sender
  • simple gateway control protocol — (communications, protocol)   (SGCP) An IETF work in progress, superseded by MGCP.
  • simple transcendental extension — a simple extension in which the specified element is not a root of any algebraic equation in the given field.
  • small computer system interface — (hardware, standard)   (SCSI) /skuh'zee/, /sek'si/ The most popular processor-independent standard, via a parallel bus, for system-level interfacing between a computer and intelligent devices including hard disks, floppy disks, CD-ROM, printers, scanners, and many more. SCSI can connect multiple devices to a single SCSI adaptor (or "host adaptor") on the computer's bus. SCSI transfers bits in parallel and can operate in either asynchronous or synchronous modes. The synchronous transfer rate is up to 5MB/s. There must be at least one target and one initiator on the SCSI bus. SCSI connections normally use "single ended" drivers as opposed to differential drivers. Single ended SCSI can suport up to six metres of cable. Differential ended SCSI can support up to 25 metres of cable. SCSI was developed by Shugart Associates, which later became Seagate. SCSI was originally called SASI for "Shugart Associates System Interface" before it became a standard. Due to SCSI's inherent protocol flexibility, large support infrastructure, continued speed increases and the acceptance of SCSI Expanders in applications it is expected to hold its market. The original standard is now called "SCSI-1" to distinguish it from SCSI-2 and SCSI-3 which include specifications of Wide SCSI (a 16-bit bus) and Fast SCSI (10 MB/s transfer). SCSI-1 has been standardised as ANSI X3.131-1986 and ISO/IEC 9316. A problem with SCSI is the large number of different connectors allowed. Nowadays the trend is toward a 68-pin miniature D-type or "high density" connector (HD68) for Wide SCSI and a 50-pin version of the same connector (HD50) for 8-bit SCSI (Type 1-4, pin pitch 1.27 mm x 2.45 mm). 50-pin ribbon cable connectors are also popular for internal wiring (Type 5, pin pitch 2.54 mm x 2.54 mm). Apple Computer used a 25-pin connector on the Macintosh computer but this connector causes problems with high-speed equipment. Original SCSI implementations were highly incompatible with each other.
  • software publishing certificate — (security)   (SPC) A public key certification standard (PKCS) #7 signed data object containing X.509 certificates. SPCs are used for digital signatures as applicable to computer software.
  • software publishing corporation — (company)   (SPC) The company that produces Harvard Graphics.
  • strategic arms limitation talks — either of two preliminary five-year agreements between the U.S. and the Soviet Union for the control of certain nuclear weapons, the first concluded in 1972 (SALT I) and the second drafted in 1979 (SALT II) but not ratified.
  • supplementary ideographic plane — (text, standard)   (SIP) The third plane (plane 2) defined in Unicode/ISO 10646, designed to hold all the ideographs descended from Chinese writing (mainly found in Vietnamese, Korean, Japanese and Chinese) that aren't found in the Basic Multilingual Plane. The BMP was supposed to hold all ideographs in modern use; unfortunately, many Chinese dialects (like Cantonese and Hong Kong Chinese) were overlooked; to write these, characters from the SIP are necessary. This is one reason even non-academic software must support characters outside the BMP.
  • take a leaf from someone's book — to follow someone's example
  • telocator alphanumeric protocol — (communications, protocol)   (TAP, or "IXO", "PET") A protocol for submitting requests to a pager service. IXO/TAP is an ASCII-based, half-duplex protocol that allows the submission of a numeric or alphanumeric message. See also RFC 1568.
  • terminal productivity executive — (operating system)   (TPX) A multiple session manager used to access mainframe applications. It was written by Morgan Stanley, acquired by Duquesne Systems and is now owned by Computer Associates. TPX allows you to work in multiple mainframe applications concurrently; lock and unlock your TPX screen; place your applications on hold; logon to TPX from a different terminal without losing your place; customize your TPX menu and send a screen image to another TPX user. TPX runs on MVS and VM. On VM, like VTAM, it uses the MVS-like facilities of GCS. It has a complete scripting facility and lets you see other user's sessions. The client-server version allows each managed session to open in its own window. Richard Kuebbing has built a complete e-mail system into it.
  • the internal security committee — a committee of the US House of Representatives that was abolished in 1975. Prior to its renaming in 1969, it was known as the House Un-American Activities Committee, and was notorious for its anti-Communist investigations in the late 1940s and 1950s
  • the national assembly for wales — the elected assembly for Wales, based in Cardiff, that has certain powers devolved from the UK government
  • to burn the candle at both ends — If you burn the candle at both ends, you try to do too many things in too short a period of time so that you have to stay up very late at night and get up very early in the morning to get them done.
  • to pour cold water on something — If you pour cold water on an idea or suggestion, you show that you have a low opinion of it.
  • training and enterprise council — one of the local bodies established in England and Wales in the early 1990s to administer publicly-funded training-for-work programmes, esp for school leavers
  • transaction processing facility — (operating system)   (TPF) A real-time mainframe operating system released by IBM around 1976. TPF is particularly suited to organisations dealing in very high I/O message switching and large global networks. Current users include British Airways (reservations), VISA International (authorisations), Holiday Inn, and Quantas. TPF was traditionally a 370/Assembler environment although the latest, release 4.1, contains C. Formerly known as ACP (Airline Control Program), it was renamed "TPF" to suggests its greater scope. It is common for TPF sites to use IBM's MVS and VM operating systems for off-line processing.
  • valediction forbidding mourning — a poem (1612) by John Donne.
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