black screen of death

created by getzburg
(thing) by getzburg (2.5 y) (print)   (I like it!) Wed Apr 05 2000 at 14:38:08
Similar to the blue screen of death, but with the added bonus of inability to do anything.
A black screen of death consists of, surprise, a black screen, with a cursor in the upper left corner. Usually accompanied by an unresponsive keyboard, and in the case of machines with ATX mobos, an unresponsive power button.
(idea) by Jargon (2.1 y) (print)   (I like it!) Thu Jul 19 2001 at 4:48:15
black magic = B = Black Thursday

Black Screen of Death n.

[prob. related to the Floating Head of Death in a famous "Far Side" cartoon.] A failure mode of Microsloth Windows. On an attempt to launch a DOS box, a networked Windows system not uncommonly blanks the screen and locks up the PC so hard that it requires a cold boot to recover. This unhappy phenomenon is known as The Black Screen of Death. See also Blue Screen of Death, which has become rather more common.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

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