Home Articles FAQs XREF Games Software Instant Books BBS About FOLDOC RFCs Feedback Sitemap
irt.Org

engine

You are here: irt.org | FOLDOC | engine

<jargon> 1. A piece of hardware that encapsulates some function but can't be used without some kind of front end. Today we have, especially, "print engine": the guts of a laser printer.

2. An analogous piece of software; notionally, one that does a lot of noisy crunching, such as a "database engine", or "search engine".

The hackish senses of "engine" are actually close to its original, pre-Industrial-Revolution sense of a skill, clever device, or instrument (the word is cognate to "ingenuity"). This sense had not been completely eclipsed by the modern connotation of power-transducing machinery in Charles Babbage's time, which explains why he named the stored-program computer that he designed in 1844 the "Analytical Engine".

[Jargon File]

(1996-05-31)

Nearby terms: end-user « engage « Engelbart, Douglas « engine » English » English shellcode » enhanced

FOLDOC, Topics, A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, T, U, V, W, X, Y, Z, ?, ALL

©2018 Martin Webb