go flatline

2 definitions found

go flatline - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  go flatline
  
     [Cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon
     brain-death] also "flatlined". 1. To die, terminate, or
     fail, especially irreversibly.  In hacker parlance, this is
     used of machines only, human death being considered somewhat
     too serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about.
  
     2. To go completely quiescent; said of machines undergoing
     controlled shutdown.  "You can suffer file damage if you shut
     down Unix but power off before the system has gone flatline."
  
     3. Of a video tube, to fail by losing vertical scan, so all
     one sees is a bright horizontal line bisecting the screen.
  
     [Jargon File]
  

go flatline - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  go flatline
   v.
  
     [from cyberpunk SF, refers to flattening of EEG traces upon
     brain-death] (also adjectival flatlined).
  
     1. To die, terminate, or fail, esp. irreversibly. In hacker
     parlance, this is used of machines only, human death being considered
     somewhat too serious a matter to employ jargon-jokes about.
  
     2. To go completely quiescent; said of machines undergoing controlled
     shutdown. "You can suffer file damage if you shut down Unix but power
     off before the system has gone flatline."
  
     3. Of a video tube, to fail by losing vertical scan, so all one sees
     is a bright horizontal line bisecting the screen.