washing machine: n. 1. Old-style 14-inch hard disks in
floor-standing cabinets. So called because of the size of the
cabinet and the `top-loading' access to the media packs -- and, of
course, they were always set on `spin cycle'. The washing-machine
idiom transcends language barriers; it is even used in Russian
hacker jargon. See also walking drives. The thick channel cables
connecting these were called `bit hoses' (see hose, sense 3). 2.
[CMU] A machine used exclusively for washing software. CMU has
clusters of these.
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