washing machine

washing machine n.  1. Old-style 14-inch hard disks in
   floor-standing cabinets.  So called because of the size of the
   cabinet and the `top-loading' access to the media packs -- and, of
   course, they were always set on `spin cycle'.  The
   washing-machine idiom transcends language barriers; it is even used
   in Russian hacker jargon.  See also {walking drives}.  The thick
   channel cables connecting these were called `bit hoses' (see
   {hose}, sense 3).  2. [CMU] A machine used exclusively to
   {wash software}.  CMU has clusters of these.