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2.9 KiB
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17 lines
2.9 KiB
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>off the trolley</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../O.html" title="O"/><link rel="previous" href="octal-forty.html" title="octal forty"/><link rel="next" href="off-by-one-error.html" title="off-by-one error"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">off the trolley</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="octal-forty.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">O</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="off-by-one-error.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="off-the-trolley"/><dt xmlns="" id="off-the-trolley"><b>off the trolley</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">adj.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> Describes the behavior of a program that malfunctions and goes
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catatonic, but doesn't actually <a href="../C/crash.html"><i class="glossterm">crash</i></a> or abort. See
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<a href="../G/glitch.html"><i class="glossterm">glitch</i></a>, <a href="../B/bug.html"><i class="glossterm">bug</i></a>,
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<a href="../D/deep-space.html"><i class="glossterm">deep space</i></a>, <a href="../W/wedged.html"><i class="glossterm">wedged</i></a>.</p><p>This term is much older than computing, and is (uncommon) slang
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elsewhere. A trolley is the small wheel that trolls, or runs against, the
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heavy wire that carries the current to run a streetcar. It's at the end of
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the long pole (the trolley pole) that reaches from the roof of the
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streetcar to the overhead line. When the trolley stops making contact with
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the wire (from passing through a switch, going over bumpy track, or
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whatever), the streetcar comes to a halt, (usually) without crashing. The
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streetcar is then said to be off the trolley, or off the wire. Later on,
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trolley came to mean the streetcar itself. Since streetcars became common
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in the 1890s, the term is more than 100 years old. Nowadays, trolleys are
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only seen on historic streetcars, since modern streetcars use pantographs
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to contact the wire.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="octal-forty.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../O.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="off-by-one-error.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">octal forty<74></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>off-by-one error</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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