guru meditation


guru meditation

(operating system, exception)The Amiga equivalent ofUnix's panic (sometimes just called a "guru" or "guruevent"). When the system crashes, a cryptic message of theform "GURU MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" may appear,indicating what the problem was. An Amiga guru can figurethings out from the numbers.

In the earliest days of the Amiga, there was a device called a"Joyboard" which was basically a plastic board built onto ajoystick-like device; it was sold with a skiing game cartridgefor the Atari game machine. It is said that whenever theprototype OS crashed, the system programmer responsible wouldconcentrate on a solution while sitting cross-legged, balancedon a Joyboard, resembling a meditating guru. Sadly, the jokewas removed in AmigaOS 2.04.

The Jargon File claimed that a guru event had to befollowed by a Vulcan nerve pinch but, according to acorrespondent, a mouse click was enough to start a reboot.