In computer jargon, a killer poke is a method of inducing physical hardware damage on a machine and/or its peripherals by the insertion of invalid values, via e.g. BASIC's POKE command, into a memory-mapped control register. The term is typically used to describe a family of fairly well known tricks that can overload the analog electronics in the CRT monitors of computers lacking hardware sanity checking (notable examples being the IBM Portable and Commodore PET.)
Famous quotes containing the words killer and/or poke:
“If someone is burdened with the blood of another, let that killer be a fugitive until death; let no one offer assistance.”
—Bible: Hebrew, Proverbs 28:17.
“I drink the five o’clock martinis
and poke at this dry page like a rough
goat. Fool! I fumble my lost childhood
for a mother and lounge in sad stuff
with love to catch and catch as catch can.”
—Anne Sexton (1928–1974)