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green card


green card: n. [after the "IBM System/360 Reference Data"
   card] A summary of an assembly language, even if the color is not
   green.  Less frequently used now because of the decrease in the use
   of assembly language.  "I'll go get my green card so I can check
   the addressing mode for that instruction."  Some green cards are
   actually booklets.

The original green card became a yellow card when the System/370 was introduced, and later a yellow booklet. An anecdote from IBM refers to a scene that took place in a programmers' terminal room at Yorktown in 1978. A luser overheard one of the programmers ask another "Do you have a green card?" The other grunted and passed the first a thick yellow booklet. At this point the luser turned a delicate shade of olive and rapidly left the room, never to return..