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)