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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>funny money</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="../F.html" title="F"/><link rel="previous" href="funky.html" title="funky"/><link rel="next" href="furrfu.html" title="furrfu"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">funny money</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="funky.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">F</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="furrfu.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="funny-money"/><dt xmlns="" id="funny-money"><b>funny money</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> 1. Notional &#8216;dollar&#8217; units of computing time and/or
storage handed to students at the beginning of a computer course; also
called <span class="firstterm">play money</span> or <span class="firstterm">purple money</span> (in implicit opposition to real or
<span class="firstterm">green</span> money). In New Zealand and
Germany the odd usage <span class="firstterm">paper money</span> has
been recorded; in Germany, the particularly amusing synonym <span class="firstterm">transfer ruble</span> commemorates the funny money
used for trade between COMECON countries back when the Soviet Bloc still
existed. When your funny money ran out, your account froze and you needed
to go to a professor to get more. Fortunately, the plunging cost of
timesharing cycles has made this less common. The amounts allocated were
almost invariably too small, even for the non-hackers who wanted to slide
by with minimum work. In extreme cases, the practice led to small-scale
black markets in bootlegged computer accounts. </p></dd><dd><p> 2. By extension, phantom money or quantity tickets of any kind used
as a resource-allocation hack within a system. Antonym: <span class="firstterm">real money</span>.</p></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="funky.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../F.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="furrfu.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">funky </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> furrfu</td></tr></table></div></body></html>