guru meditation

guru meditation n.  Amiga equivalent of `panic' in UNIX
   (sometimes just called a `guru' or `guru event').  When the
   system crashes, a cryptic message of the form "GURU MEDITATION
   #XXXXXXXX.YYYYYYYY" may appear, indicating what the problem was.
   An Amiga guru can figure things out from the numbers.  Generally a
   {guru} event must be followed by a {Vulcan nerve pinch}.

   This term is (no surprise) an in-joke from the earliest days of the
   Amiga.  There used to be a device called a `Joyboard' which was
   basically a plastic board built onto a joystick-like device; it was
   sold with a skiing game cartridge for the Atari game machine.  It
   is said that whenever the prototype OS crashed, the system
   programmer responsible would calm down by concentrating on a
   solution while sitting cross-legged on a Joyboard trying to keep
   the board in balance.  This position resembled that of a meditating
   guru.  Sadly, the joke was removed in AmigaOS 2.04 (actually in
   2.00, a buggy post-2.0 release on the A3000 only).