[from the movie Star Wars]
1. The AT&T corporate logo, which bears an uncanny resemblance to the
Death Star in the Star Wars movies. This usage was particularly
common among partisans of {BSD} Unix in the 1980s, who tended to
regard the AT&T versions as inferior and AT&T as a bad guy. Copies
still circulate of a poster printed by Mt. Xinu showing a starscape
with a space fighter labeled 4.2 BSD streaking away from a broken
AT&T logo wreathed in flames.
2. AT&T's internal magazine, Focus, uses death star to describe an
incorrectly done AT&T logo in which the inner circle in the top left
is dark instead of light -- a frequent result of dark-on-light logo
images.
3. The IBM DeskStar 75GXP drive series, which suffered manufacturing
problems and had an uncanny ability to die after a few months in the
field. This drive series single-handedly destroyed IBM's previously
very good reputation in the hard disk market, and ended up with IBM
selling their hard disk business to Hitachi.
[glossary]
[Reference(s) to this entry by made by: {Death Square}]