Back to the succinct I-way, then, a term which is much more Net-friendly than the cumbersome Information Superhighway. Indeed, it's so short we might be stuck with it. But even now, somewhere in cyberspace, a jargonaut is probably loading up on programming fluid and trying to come up with something new.

''We all use the Coke machine,'' he said, speaking for the hard-core terminal junkies on campus, and noting that the proceeds from this particular Coke machine benefit the computer department. He also mentioned that the sodas in the online machine are a ''little cheaper than other machines on campus.''

Add to that the fact that the machine contains caffeinated ''programming fluids'' that computer people often desperately need during long hours spent in hack mode and the fact that the bottles are 20 ounces each compared with the 12 ounce cans of Coke you get elsewhere on campus.