zap

	This is the JargonFile ^(V4.00) entry for zap - Next: zapped, Prev: Yu-Shiang Whole Fish
:zap: 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."
* (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)*