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MIPS: /mips/, n. [abbreviation] 1. A measure of computing speed; formally, ‘Million
Instructions Per Second’ (that's
106 per second, not
220!); often rendered by
hackers as ‘Meaningless Indication of Processor Speed’ or in
other unflattering ways, such as ‘Meaningless Information Provided by
Salesmen’. This joke expresses an attitude nearly universal among
hackers about the value of most benchmark claims,
said attitude being one of the great cultural divides between hackers and
marketroids (see also
BogoMIPS). The singular is sometimes ‘1
MIP’ even though this is clearly etymologically wrong. See also
KIPS and GIPS. 2. Computers, especially large computers, considered abstractly as
sources of computrons. “This is just a
workstation; the heavy MIPS are hidden in the basement.” 3. The corporate name of a particular RISC-chip company,
later acquired by SGI. 4. Acronym for ‘Meaningless Information per Second’ (a
joke, prob.: from sense 1).
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