Joke hardware

Joke hardware is computer systems designed for subversive and satirical ends, though this is usually kept private to the company that makes them. Someone attempting to develop for joke hardware will be greeted with a bewildering array of obstacles, all designed to test the programmer's perseverance and credulity. This has been going on for close to two decades now, but few are catching on.

Joke hardware of course makes a natural basis for joke programming languages and joke software. Of particular significance is the C++ language, which is holding another double-free-filled wild pointer festival later this year. Developed in C++ is the Leviathan, a ten-trillion-line behemoth internal accounting system that reproduces the entire semantic content of The Iliad as part of its dead code.

In the decades since its inception, joke hardware has accumulated a large number of clichés, such as the rimshot when the types of two linked functions fail to match up.

Exercise: if "C++" was a Pac-man eating pellets, what would the ghosts look like?

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