There was a way that early Macs crashed that left a snow pattern on the screen. Hence, the Mac Snow Crashed.
-- usually accompanied by machine-gun-like noises...
Ditto with CGA video cards on IBM PC clones.
Not just "early" Macs. My new Mac Mini (bought March 2009) also snow crashes. See the video at: www.youtube.com 
images.amazon.com
ISBN:
0-553-38095-8 (2000)
ISBN:
0-553-56261-4 (1992)
A seminal book by Neal Stephenson, where he introduces the Meta Verse, a world full of Three Ring Binders, and Hiro Protagonist.
From the Jargon File:
Stephenson's epic, comic cyberpunk novel is deeply knowing about the hacker psychology and its foibles in a way no other author of fiction has ever even approached. His imagination, his grasp of the relevant technical details, and his ability to communicate the excitement of hacking and its results are astonishing, delightful, and (so far) unsurpassed.
Review by Sunir Shah: If you call yourself a webfiend, if you like playing with (vs "on") online communities, get this book and read it. Do it. Do it now. Or be destined to always be a grainy black and white avatar.
One of the best books I ever read. One of the seminal Cyber Punk works, but highly entertaining and even funny. This is a must have.
-- sg
It is a fun book (although the ending is pretty cheesy), but it is not one of the seminal Cyber Punk books. Snow Crash was published in 1992, while Cyber Punk, as a literary movement within science fiction, started around the end of the 70s and the beginning of the 80s. Neuromancer (probably the novel to which the description "seminal Cyber Punk" is most applicable) was written in '84.
I totally disagree. I see Neuromancer and Snow Crash as bookends on the Cyberpunk movement. Remember that William Gibson didn't know squat about the technologies he was writing about. On the other hand, Neal Stephenson actually understands computers and crypto. I would look at the difference between the two as being like comparing "From the Earth to the Moon" by Jules Verne to "2001:A Space Odyssey" by Arthur Cee Clarke. One worked more in the realm of pure ideas and speculation, not requiring grounding in reality, while the other was a technical extrapolation from existing knowledge.
Actually, you agree! By the dictionary definition of "seminal", Neuromancer is a seminal Cyber Punk novel, while Snow Crash, good though it is, is not.
I just finished reading the The Diamond Age, also by Neal Stephenson. Kind of reminiscent of Heinlein's Stranger Ina Strange Land. Very enjoyable - although as a projection of future society, I thought the lack of biological components to nanotechnology was a startling oversight. -- Andy Pierce
See original on c2.com