luser definition jargon, abuse /loo'zr/ A user ; especially one
who is also a loser are pronounced identically.) This word was
coined around 1975 at MIT , when you first walked up to a
terminal at MIT and typed Control-Z to get the computer's
attention, it printed out some status information, including how
many people were already using the computer; it might print "14
users", for example. Someone thought it would be a great joke to
patch the system to print "14 losers" instead. There ensued a
great controversy, as some of the users didn't particularly want
to be called losers to their faces every time they used the
computer. For a while several hackers struggled covertly, each
changing the message behind the back of the others; any time you
logged into the computer it was even money whether it would say
"users" or "losers". Finally, someone tried the compromise
"lusers", and it stuck. Later one of the ITS machines supported
"luser" as a request-for-help command. ITS died the death in
mid-1990, except as a mu