guru meditation
{Amiga} equivalent of {panic} in {Unix} (sometimes just called
a "guru" or "guru event"). When the system crashes, a cryptic
message of the form "GURU MEDITATION #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" may
appear, indicating what the problem was. An Amiga guru can
figure things out from the numbers. Generally a {guru} event
must be followed by a {Vulcan nerve pinch}.
This term is (no surprise) an in-joke from the earliest days
of the Amiga. There used to be a device called a "Joyboard"
which was basically a plastic board built onto a joystick-like
device; it was sold with a skiing game cartridge for the Atari
game machine. It is said that whenever the prototype OS
crashed, the system programmer responsible would calm down by
concentrating on a solution while sitting cross-legged on a
Joyboard trying to keep the board in balance. This position
resembled that of a meditating guru. Sadly, the joke was
removed in AmigaOS 2.04.
[{Jargon File}]