line noise

line noise

[′līn ‚nȯiz] (communications) Noise originating in a transmission line from such causes as poor joints and inductive interference from power lines.

line noise

(communications)1. Spurious characters due to electricalnoise in a communications link, especially an EIA-232serial connection. Line noise may be induced by poorconnections, interference or crosstalk from other circuits,electrical storms, cosmic rays, or (notionally) birdscrapping on the phone wires.

2. Any chunk of data in a file or elsewhere that looks likethe results of electrical line noise.

3. Text that is theoretically a readable text or programsource but employs syntax so bizarre that it looks like linenoise. Yes, there are languages this ugly. The canonicalexample is TECO, whose input syntax is often said to beindistinguishable from line noise. Other non-WYSIWYGeditors, such as Multics "qed" and Unix "ed", in thehands of a real hacker, also qualify easily, as dodeliberately obfuscated languages such as INTERCAL.