the machine called snark in the subdomain called thyrsus
within the top-level domain called com. See also
{big-endian}, sense 2.

The meaning of this term has drifted. At one time sense 2 was
primary. In elder days it was also used of a site, mailer, or
routing program which knew how to handle domainist addresses; or of
a person (esp. a site admin) who preferred domain addressing,
supported a domainist mailer, or proselytized for domainist
addressing and disdained {bang path}s. These senses are now
(1996) obsolete, as effectively all sites have converted.

:Don't do that, then!: /imp./ [from an old doctor's office joke
about a patient with a trivial complaint] Stock response to a user
complaint. "When I type control-S, the whole system comes to a
halt for thirty seconds." "Don't do that, then!" (or "So don't
do that!"). Compare {RTFM}.

:dongle: /dong'gl/ /n./ 1. A security or {copy protection}
device for commercial microcomputer programs consisting of a
serialized EPROM and some drivers in a D-25 connector shell, which
must be connected to an I/O port of the computer while the program
is run. Programs that use a dongle query the port at startup and
at programmed intervals thereafter, and terminate if it does not
respond with the dongle's programmed validation code. Thus, users
can make as many copies of the program as they want but must pay
for each dongle. The idea was clever, but it was initially a
failure, as users disliked tying up a serial port this way. Almost
all dongles on the market today (1993) will pass data through the
port and monitor for {magic} codes (and combinations of status