meaning of death code
1. death code A routine whose job is to set everything in the computer - registers, memory, flags - to zero, including that portion of memory where it is running; its last act is to stomp on its own "store zero" instruction. Death code isnt very useful, but writing it is an interesting hacking challenge on architectures where the instruction set makes it possible, such as the PDP-8 or the Data General Nova. Perhaps the ultimate death code is on the TI 990 series, where all registers are actually in RAM, and the instruction "store immediate 0" has the opcode 0. The program counter will immediately wrap around core as many times as it can until a user hits HALT. Any empty memory location is death code. Worse, the manufacturer recommended use of this instruction in startup code which would be in ROM and therefore survive. [Jargon File] Death Star ["Star Wars" film] 1. The AT&T corporate logo, which appears on computers sold by AT&T and bears an uncanny resemblance to the Death Star in the movie. This usage is particularly common among partisans of BSD Unix, who tend to regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy. Copies still circulate of a poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape with a space fighter labelled 4. 2BSD streaking away from a broken AT&T logo wreathed in flames. 2. AT&Ts internal magazine, "Focus", uses "death star" to describe an incorrectly done AT&T logo in which the inner circle in the top left is dark instead of light - a frequent result of dark-on-light logo images. deb
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