1. [common; generalization of Honeywell Brain Damage
(HBD), a theoretical disease invented to explain certain utter cretinisms
in Honeywell Multics] adj. Obviously wrong;
cretinous; demented. There
is an implication that the person responsible must have suffered brain
damage, because he should have known better. Calling something
brain-damaged is really bad; it also implies it is unusable, and that its
failure to work is due to poor design rather than some accident.
Only six monocase characters per file name? Now
that's brain-damaged!
2. [esp. in the Mac world] May refer to free demonstration software that has been deliberately crippled in some way so as not to compete with the product it is intended to sell. Syn. crippleware.