killer micro

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for killer micro - Next: killer poke, Prev: killer app
:killer micro: /n./ [popularized by Eugene Brooks] A microprocessor-based machine that infringes on mini, mainframe, or supercomputer performance turf. Often heard in "No one will survive the attack of the killer micros!", the battle cry of the downsizers. Used esp. of RISC architectures. The popularity of the phrase attack of the killer micros is doubtless reinforced by the title of the movie "Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes" (one of the canonical examples of so-bad-its-wonderful among hackers). This has even more flavor now that killer micros have gone on the offensive not just individually (in workstations) but in hordes (within massively parallel computers). [1996 update: Eugene Brooks was right. Since this term first entered the Jargon File in 1990, the minicomputer has effectively vanished, the mainframe sector is in deep and apparently terminal decline (with IBM but a shadow of its former self), and even the supercomputer business has contracted into a smaller niche. Its networked killer micros as far as the eye can see. --ESR]
* (text is auto-included via JargonExtension by mutante using jargon with VERSION 4.0.0, 24 JUL 1996* - JargonFile by Eric S. Raymond is in the public domain)*