bit rot

2 definitions found

bit rot - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  bit rot
  alpha particle
  bit decay
  
     <jargon> A hypothetical disease the existence of which has
     been deduced from the observation that unused programs or
     features will often stop working after sufficient time has
     passed, even if "nothing has changed".  The theory explains
     that bits decay as if they were radioactive.  As time passes,
     the contents of a file or the code in a program will become
     increasingly garbled.
  
     People with a physics background tend to prefer the variant
     "bit decay" for the analogy with particle decay.
  
     There actually are physical processes that produce such
     effects (alpha particles generated by trace radionuclides in
     ceramic chip packages, for example, can change the contents of
     a computer memory unpredictably, and various kinds of subtle
     media failures can corrupt files in mass storage), but they
     are quite rare (and computers are built with error detection
     circuitry to compensate for them).  The notion long favoured
     among hackers that cosmic rays are among the causes of such
     events turns out to be a myth.
  
     Bit rot is the notional cause of software rot.
  
     See also computron, quantum bogodynamics.
  
     [Jargon File]
  
     (1998-03-15)
  

bit rot - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  bit rot
   n.
  
     [common] Also bit decay. Hypothetical disease the existence of
  which
     has been deduced from the observation that unused programs or
  features
     will often stop working after sufficient time has passed, even if
     `nothing has changed'. The theory explains that bits decay as if they
     were radioactive. As time passes, the contents of a file or the code
     in a program will become increasingly garbled.
  
     There actually are physical processes that produce such effects
  (alpha
     particles generated by trace radionuclides in ceramic chip packages,
     for example, can change the contents of a computer memory
     unpredictably, and various kinds of subtle media failures can corrupt
     files in mass storage), but they are quite rare (and computers are
     built with error-detecting circuitry to compensate for them). The
     notion long favored among hackers that cosmic rays are among the
     causes of such events turns out to be a myth; see the cosmic rays
     entry for details.
  
     The term software rot is almost synonymous. Software rot is the
     effect, bit rot the notional cause.