Helen Keller Mode

Definitions

1. A state in which a terminal or session has become both deaf and mute: it neither echoes input nor produces output, leaving the user typing blindly into a channel that gives no feedback. Typically caused by a crashed or wedged process holding the line, a lost connection that has not yet timed out, or terminal settings mangled beyond recovery. The usual remedy is to abandon the session rather than negotiate with it. Now considered insensitive and largely retired from active use, it is retained here as a historical Jargon File entry documenting how the culture actually spoke.