A computer system; always used with qualifiers.
1. "nice toy": One that supports the speaker's hacking style adequately.
2. "just a toy": A machine that yields insufficient computron s for the speaker's preferred uses. This is not condemnatory, as is bitty box ; toys can at least be fun. It is also strongly conditioned by one's expectations; Cray XMP users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a "toy", and certainly all RISC boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards. See also Get a real computer! .
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