panicky

adj : thrown into a state of intense fear or desperation; "became

panicky as the snow deepened"; "felt panicked before

each exam"; "trying to keep back the panic-stricken

crowd"; "the terrified horse bolted" [syn: {panicked},

{panic-stricken}, {panic-struck}, {terrified}, {frightened}]

panic

1. What {Unix} does when a critical

internal consistency checks fails in such a way that Unix

cannot continue. The {kernel} attempts to print a short

message on the {console} and write an image of memory into the

{swap area} on disk. This can be analysed later using {adb}.

The kernel will then either wait in a {tight loop} until the

machine is rebooted or will initiate an automatic {reboot}.

{Unix manual page}: panic(8).

2. Action taken by software which discovers some fatal problem

which prevents it from continuing to run.

(1995-03-01)