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Bounce




1. (Perhaps by analogy to a bouncing check) An electronic mail message that is undeliverable and returns an error notification (a "bounce message") to the sender is said to "bounce".

2. 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 PM to 7 PM 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; probably 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 computer 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.

[Jargon File]



< Previous TermsTerms Containing bounceNext Terms >
bottom-unique
bottom-up implementation
bottom-up model
bottom-up testing
botwar
addressee
barfmail
black hole
boink
bounce
bounce message
boundary scan
boundary value analysis
bounded
boundedly complete


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