Origins
The term "Guru Meditation Error" was an in-house joke from Amiga's early days. One of the company's products was the Joyboard, a game controller much like a joystick but operated by one's feet, similar to the modern-day Wii Balance Board. Early in the development of the Amiga computer operating system, the company's developers became so frustrated with the system's frequent crashes that, as a relaxation technique, a game was developed where a person would sit cross-legged on the joyboard, resembling an Indian guru. The player was supposed to remain perfectly still with the goal of the game being to stay still the longest. If the player moved, a "guru meditation" error resulted. A similar game is the final unlockable balance activity in Wii Fit.
The error was removed from subsequent versions of the Amiga ROM (Kickstart), but some users chose to patch it back in.
Read more about this topic: Guru Meditation
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