drop-outs

from Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

drop-outs
 n.

   1. A variety of power glitch (see {glitch}); momentary 0 voltage on
   the electrical mains.

   2. Missing characters in typed input due to software malfunction or
   system saturation (one cause of such behavior under Unix when a bad
   connection to a modem swamps the processor with spurious character
   interrupts; see {screaming tty}).

   3. Mental glitches; used as a way of describing those occasions when
   the mind just seems to shut down for a couple of beats. See {glitch},
   {fried}.

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

drop-outs

   1. A variety of "power glitch" (see {glitch}); momentary zero
   voltage on the electrical mains.

   2. Missing characters in typed input due to software
   malfunction or system overload (one cause of such behaviour
   under {Unix} when a bad connection to a modem swamps the
   processor with spurious character interrupts; see {screaming
   tty}).

   3. Mental glitches; used as a way of describing those
   occasions when the mind just seems to shut down for a couple
   of beats.  See {glitch}, {fried}.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (2001-02-22)