Vulcan nerve pinch

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Vulcan nerve pinch n.

[from the old "Star Trek" TV series via Commodore Amiga hackers] The keyboard combination that forces a soft-boot or jump to ROM monitor (on machines that support such a feature). On Amigas this is <Ctrl>-<Left-Amiga>-<Right-Amiga>; on PC clones this is Ctrl-Alt-Del; on Suns, L1-A; on Macintoshes, it is <Cmd>-<Power switch> or <Cmd>-<Ctrl>-<Power>! On IRIX, <Left-Ctrl><Left-Shift><F12><Keypad-Slash>, which kills and restarts the X server, is sometimes called a vulcan nerve pinch. Also called three-finger salute and `Vulcan death grip'. At shops with a lot of Microsoft Windows machines, this is often called the `Microsoft Maneuver' because of the distressing frequency with which Microsoft's unreliable software requires it. Compare quadruple bucky.

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