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Blue Screen of Death

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Blue Screen of Death: n. [common] This term is closely related to the older Black Screen of Death but much more common (many non-hackers have picked it up). Due to the extreme fragility and bugginess of Microsoft Windows (3.1/95/NT versions), misbehaving applications can crash the OS. The Blue Screen of Death, sometimes decorated with hex error codes, is what you get when this happens. (Commonly abbreviated BSOD.) This event is sufficiently common to have inspired the following haiku from Alan Tuplin: 

             Your system which soared
             So freely on gliding wings
             now hangs, frozen and blue

The following entry from the Salon Haiku Contest (http://www.salonmagazine.com/21st/chal/1998/02/10chal2.html), seems to have predated popular use of the term (and may indeed have inspired it): 

             Windows NT crashed.
             I am the Blue Screen of Death
             No one hears your screams.

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mes@science.uva.nl