A computer system; always used with qualifiers.

1. "nice toy": One that supports the speaker's hacking style adequately.

2. "just a toy": A machine that yields insufficient computrons for the speaker's preferred uses. This is not condemnatory, as is bitty box; toys can at least be fun. It is also strongly conditioned by one's expectations; Cray XMP users sometimes consider the Cray-1 a "toy", and certainly all RISC boxes and mainframes are toys by their standards. See also Get a real computer!.

[Jargon File]