3  definitions  found 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  IBM  /I-B-M/  Inferior  But  Marketable;  It's  Better  Manually; 
  Insidious  Black  Magic;  It's  Been  Malfunctioning;  Incontinent  Bowel 
  Movement;  and  a  near-{infinite}  number  of  even  less  complimentary 
  expansions,  including  `International  Business  Machines'.  See  {TLA}. 
  These  abbreviations  illustrate  the  considerable  antipathy  most  hackers 
  long  felt  toward  the  `industry  leader'  (see  {fear  and  loathing}). 
 
  What  galled  hackers  about  most  IBM  machines  above  the  PC  level  wasn't 
  so  much  that  they  were  underpowered  and  overpriced  (though  that  does 
  count  against  them),  but  that  the  designs  are  incredibly  archaic, 
  {crufty},  and  {elephantine}  ...  and  you  can't  _fix_  them  --  source  code 
  is  locked  up  tight,  and  programming  tools  are  expensive,  hard  to  find 
  and  bletcherous  to  use  once  you've  found  them  For  many  years,  before 
  Microsoft,  IBM  was  the  company  hackers  loved  to  hate. 
 
  But  everything  changes.  In  the  1980s  IBM  had  its  own  troubles  with 
  Microsoft.  In  the  late  1990s  IBM  re-invented  itself  as  a  services 
  company,  began  to  release  open-source  software  through  its  AlphaWorks 
  group  and  began  shipping  {Linux}  systems  and  building  ties  to  the 
  Linux  community.  To  the  astonishment  of  all  parties,  IBM  emerged  as  a 
  friend  of  the  hacker  community 
 
  This  lexicon  includes  a  number  of  entries  attributed  to  `IBM'; 
  these  derive  from  some  rampantly  unofficial  jargon  lists  circulated 
  within  IBM's  own  beleaguered  hacker  underground. 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  IBM 
 
  {International  Business  Machines} 
 
 
 
  From  V.E.R.A.  --  Virtual  Entity  of  Relevant  Acronyms  13  March  2001  [vera]: 
 
  IBM 
  International  Business  Machines  (manufacturer,  IBM) 
 
 

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