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The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (foldoc)

1. The duration of one {tick} of the computer's {system
clock}. Often one AC cycle time (1/60 second in the US and
Canada, 1/50 most other places), but more recently 1/100 sec
has become common.

2. Confusingly, the term is sometimes also used for a
1-millisecond {wall time} interval. Even more confusingly,
physicists semi-jokingly use "jiffy" to mean the time required
for light to travel one foot in a vacuum, which turns out to
be close to one *nanosecond*.

[{Jargon File}]

(2002-03-02)