< communications > 1. Spurious characters due to electrical noise in a communications link, especially an EIA-232 serial connection. Line noise may be induced by poor connections, interference or crosstalk from other circuits, electrical storms, cosmic rays , or (notionally) birds crapping on the phone wires.
2. Any chunk of data in a file or elsewhere that looks like the results of electrical line noise.
3. Text that is theoretically a readable text or program source but employs syntax so bizarre that it looks like line noise. Yes, there are languages this ugly. The canonical example is TECO , whose input syntax is often said to be indistinguishable from line noise. Other non- WYSIWYG editors, such as Multics " qed " and Unix " ed ", in the hands of a real hacker, also qualify easily, as do deliberately obfuscate d languages such as INTERCAL .
[ Jargon File ]
(1994-12-22)