black screen of death (idea) by Jargon

Black Screen of Death n.

[prob. related to the Floating Head of Death in a famous "Far Side" cartoon.] A failure mode of Microsloth Windows. On an attempt to launch a DOS box, a networked Windows system not uncommonly blanks the screen and locks up the PC so hard that it requires a cold boot to recover. This unhappy phenomenon is known as The Black Screen of Death. See also Blue Screen of Death, which has become rather more common.

--The Jargon File version 4.3.1, ed. ESR, autonoded by rescdsk.

Blue Screen of Death	Microsloth Windows	Black Thursday	Green Screen of Death
ATX	division by zero error	The Far Side	A modem is better than nothing
Fear of a Black Hat	Antitrust: The Justice Department and 17 states proposed Breaking up Microsoft into two companies.	mobo	DVD
Audioscrobbler	black magic	The Black Death Part 11: The Aftermath	magic number
Black	PC	BSOD	Gun
Microsoft	red ring of death	bootable USB key	A Death in the Nodegel