down: 1. adj. Not operating. "The up escalator is down" is
considered a humorous thing to say (unless of course you were
expecting to use it), and "The elevator is down" always means "The
elevator isn't working" and never refers to what floor the elevator
is on. With respect to computers, this term has passed into the
mainstream; the extension to other kinds of machine is still
confined to techies (e.g. boiler mechanics may speak of a boiler
being down). 2. `go down' vi. To stop functioning; usually said of
the system. The message from the console that every hacker
hates to hear from the operator is "System going down in 5 minutes".
3. `take down', `bring down' vt. To deactivate purposely, usually
for repair work or PM. "I'm taking the system down to work on
that bug in the tape drive." Occasionally one hears the word `down'
by itself used as a verb in this vt. sense. See crash; oppose
up.
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