Zap

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The Jargon File Parts of this article are based on the Jargon File, v. 4.4.7, a public domain document of hacker jargon.

zap

Usage: n. vt. esp. See Also: zapped

zap: n. vt. esp.

1. n. Spiciness.
2. vt. To make food spicy.
3. vt. To make someone `suffer' by making his food spicy. (Most hackers love spicy food. Hot-and-sour soup is considered wimpy unless it makes you wipe your nose for the rest of the meal.) See zapped.
4. vt. To modify, usually to correct; esp. used when the action is performed with a debugger or binary patching tool. Also implies surgical precision. "Zap the debug level to 6 and run it again." In the IBM mainframe world, binary patches are applied to programs or to the OS with a program called `superzap', whose file name is `IMASPZAP' (possibly contrived from I M A SuPerZAP).
5. vt. To erase or reset.
6. To fry a chip with static electricity. "Uh oh -- I think that lightning strike may have zapped the disk controller."

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