microfloppies
= M =
microLenat
microfortnight n.
1/1000000 of the fundamental unit of time
in the Furlong/Firkin/Fortnight system of measurement; 1.2096 sec.
(A furlong is 1/8th of a mile; a firkin is 1/4th of a barrel; the
mass unit of the system is taken to be a firkin of water). The VMS
operating system has a lot of tuning parameters that you can set
with the SYSGEN utility, and one of these is TIMEPROMPTWAIT, the
time the system will wait for an operator to set the correct date
and time at boot if it realizes that the current value is bogus.
This time is specified in microfortnights!
Multiple uses of the millifortnight (about 20 minutes) and
nanofortnight have also been reported.
--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.