Guru meditation
<operating system, exception> The
Amiga equivalent of
Unix's
panic (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.
In the earliest days of the Amiga, there was 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 concentrate on a solution while sitting cross-legged, balanced on a Joyboard, resembling a meditating guru.
Sadly, the joke was removed in AmigaOS 2.04.
The
Jargon File claimed that a
guru event had to be followed by a
Vulcan nerve pinch but, according to a correspondent, a mouse click was enough to start a reboot.
