down
1. adj. Not operating. "The up escalator is down" is
considered a humorous thing to say, and "The elevator is down"
always means "The elevator isn't working" and never refers to
what floor the elevator is on. With respect to computers, this
usage has passed into the mainstream; the extension to other kinds
of machine is still hackish. 2. `go down' vi. To stop
functioning; usually said of the
system. The message from the
console that every hacker hates to hear from the operator is
"The system will go down in 5 minutes". 3. `take down',
`bring down' vt. To deactivate purposely, usually for repair work
or
PM. "I'm taking the system down to work on that bug in the
tape drive." Occasionally one hears the word `down' by itself
used as a verb in this vt. sense. See
crash; oppose
up.
