1.
[syn: Mars, Red Planet]
2. (Roman mythology) Roman god of war and agriculture; father of Romulus and Remus; counterpart of Greek Ares;
The Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48:
Mars \Mars\ (m[aum]rz), prop. n. [L. Mars, gen. Martis, archaic
Mavors, gen. Mavortis.]
1. (Rom. Myth.) The god of war and husbandry.
[1913 Webster]
2. (Astron.) One of the planets of the solar system, the
fourth in order from the sun, or the next beyond the
earth, having a diameter of about 4,200 miles, a period of
687 days, and a mean distance of 141,000,000 miles. It is
conspicuous for the redness of its light.
[1913 Webster]
3. (Alchemy) The metallic element iron, the symbol of which
[male] was the same as that of the planet Mars. [Archaic]
--Chaucer.
[1913 Webster]
Mars brown, a bright, somewhat yellowish, brown.
[1913 Webster]
WordNet (r) 3.0 (2006):
Mars
n 1: a small reddish planet that is the 4th from the sun and is
periodically visible to the naked eye; minerals rich in
iron cover its surface and are responsible for its
characteristic color; "Mars has two satellites" [syn:
Mars, Red Planet]
2: (Roman mythology) Roman god of war and agriculture; father of
Romulus and Remus; counterpart of Greek Ares
Moby Thesaurus II by Grady Ward, 1.0:
90 Moby Thesaurus words for "Mars":
Agdistis, Amor, Aphrodite, Apollo, Apollon, Ares, Artemis, Ate,
Athena, Bacchus, Bellona, Ceres, Cora, Cronus, Cupid, Cybele,
Demeter, Despoina, Diana, Dionysus, Dis, Earth, Enyo, Eros, Gaea,
Gaia, Ge, Great Mother, Hades, Helios, Hephaestus, Hera, Here,
Hermes, Hestia, Hymen, Hyperion, Jove, Juno, Jupiter,
Jupiter Fidius, Jupiter Fulgur, Jupiter Optimus Maximus,
Jupiter Pluvius, Jupiter Tonans, Kore, Kronos, Magna Mater,
Mercury, Minerva, Mithras, Momus, Neptune, Nike, Odin, Olympians,
Olympic gods, Ops, Orcus, Persephassa, Persephone, Phoebus,
Phoebus Apollo, Pluto, Poseidon, Proserpina, Proserpine, Rhea,
Saturn, Tellus, Tiu, Tyr, Uranus, Venus, Vesta, Vulcan, Woden,
Wotan, Zeus, asteroid, inferior planet, major planet, minor planet,
planet, planetoid, secondary planet, solar system, superior planet,
terrestrial planet, wanderer
The Jargon File (version 4.4.7, 29 Dec 2003):
Mars
n.
A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream Gone Wrong. Mars
was the code name for a family of PDP-10-compatible computers built by
Systems Concepts (now, The SC Group): the multi-processor SC-30M, the small
uniprocessor SC-25, and the never-built superprocessor SC-40. These
machines were marvels of engineering design; although not much slower than
the unique Foonly F-1, they were physically smaller and consumed less
power than the much slower DEC KS10 or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4 machines.
They were also completely compatible with the DEC KL10, and ran all KL10
binaries (including the operating system) with no modifications at about
2--3 times faster than a KL10.
When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983 (their followup to the
PDP-10), Systems Concepts should have made a bundle selling their machine
into shops with a lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in fact their
spring 1984 announcement generated a great deal of excitement in the PDP-10
world. TOPS-10 was running on the Mars by the summer of 1984, and TOPS-20
by early fall. Unfortunately, the hackers running Systems Concepts were
much better at designing machines than at mass producing or selling them;
the company allowed itself to be sidetracked by a bout of perfectionism
into continually improving the design, and lost credibility as delivery
dates continued to slip. They also overpriced the product ridiculously;
they believed they were competing with the KL10 and VAX 8600 and failed
to reckon with the likes of Sun Microsystems and other hungry startups
building workstations with power comparable to the KL10 at a fraction of
the price. By the time SC shipped the first SC-30M to Stanford in late
1985, most customers had already made the traumatic decision to abandon the
PDP-10, usually for VMS or Unix boxes. Most of the Mars computers built
ended up being purchased by CompuServe.
This tale and the related saga of Foonly hold a lesson for hackers: if
you want to play in the Real World, you need to learn Real World moves.
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (30 December 2018):
Mars
A legendary tragic failure, the archetypal Hacker Dream Gone
Wrong. Mars was the code name for a family of PDP-10
compatible computers built by Systems Concepts (now, The SC
Group): the multi-processor SC-30M, the small uniprocessor
SC-25M, and the never-built superprocessor SC-40M. These
machines were marvels of engineering design; although not much
slower than the unique Foonly F-1, they were physically
smaller and consumed less power than the much slower DEC KS10
or Foonly F-2, F-3, or F-4 machines. They were also
completely compatible with the DEC KL10, and ran all KL10
binaries (including the operating system) with no
modifications at about 2--3 times faster than a KL10.
When DEC cancelled the Jupiter project in 1983, Systems
Concepts should have made a bundle selling their machine into
shops with a lot of software investment in PDP-10s, and in
fact their spring 1984 announcement generated a great deal of
excitement in the PDP-10 world. TOPS-10 was running on the
Mars by the summer of 1984, and TOPS-20 by early fall.
Unfortunately, the hackers running Systems Concepts were much
better at designing machines than at mass producing or selling
them; the company allowed itself to be sidetracked by a bout
of perfectionism into continually improving the design, and
lost credibility as delivery dates continued to slip. They
also overpriced the product ridiculously; they believed they
were competing with the KL10 and VAX 8600 and failed to reckon
with the likes of Sun Microsystems and other hungry startups
building workstations with power comparable to the KL10 at a
fraction of the price.
By the time SC shipped the first SC-30M to Stanford in late
1985, most customers had already made the traumatic decision
to abandon the PDP-10, usually for VMS or Unix boxes. Most of
the Mars computers built ended up being purchased by
CompuServe.
This tale and the related saga of Foonly hold a lesson for
hackers: if you want to play in the Real World, you need to
learn Real World moves.
[Jargon File]
U.S. Gazetteer Places (2000):
Mars, PA -- U.S. borough in Pennsylvania
Population (2000): 1746
Housing Units (2000): 715
Land area (2000): 0.446948 sq. miles (1.157591 sq. km)
Water area (2000): 0.000000 sq. miles (0.000000 sq. km)
Total area (2000): 0.446948 sq. miles (1.157591 sq. km)
FIPS code: 47672
Located within: Pennsylvania (PA), FIPS 42
Location: 40.696594 N, 80.012205 W
ZIP Codes (1990): 16046
Note: some ZIP codes may be omitted esp. for suburbs.
Headwords:
Mars, PA
Mars