computron: /kom'pyoo-tron`/ n. 1. [common] A notional unit of
computing power combining instruction speed and storage capacity,
dimensioned roughly in instructions-per-second times
megabytes-of-main-store times megabytes-of-mass-storage. "That
machine can't run GNU Emacs, it doesn't have enough computrons!"
This usage is usually found in metaphors that treat computing power
as a fungible commodity good, like a crop yield or diesel
horsepower. See bitty box, Get a real computer!, toy,
crank. 2. A mythical subatomic particle that bears the unit
quantity of computation or information, in much the same way that an
electron bears one unit of electric charge (see also bogon). An
elaborate pseudo-scientific theory of computrons has been developed
based on the physical fact that the molecules in a solid object move
more rapidly as it is heated. It is argued that an object melts
because the molecules have lost their information about where they
are supposed to be (that is, they have emitted computrons). This
explains why computers get so hot and require air conditioning; they
use up computrons. Conversely, it should be possible to cool down
an object by placing it in the path of a computron beam. It is
believed that this may also explain why machines that work at the
factory fail in the computer room: the computrons there have been
all used up by the other hardware. (The popularity of this theory
probably owes something to the "Warlock" stories by Larry Niven, the
best known being "What Good is a Glass Dagger?", in which magic is
fueled by an exhaustible natural resource called `mana'.)
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