Hardwired (pronounced hahrd-whyid)
(1) In
electronics, built into the hardware.
(2) In
mainframe computing, a terminal connected to the CPU(s) by a direct cable
rather than through a switching network.
(3) In
the behavioral sciences, a cluster of theories pertaining to or describing intrinsic
and relatively un-modifiable patterns of behavior by both humans and animals. Published work describes genetically
determined, instinctive behavior, as opposed to learned behavior.
(4) In
computer programming, a kludge temporarily or quickly to fix a problem, done
historically by bypassing the operating system and directly addressing the
hardware (assembly language).
(5) Casual
term for anything designed to perform a specific task.
1969: A compound word: hard + wired. Hard was from the Middle English hard from the Old English heard, from the Proto-Germanic harduz, derived ultimately from the primitive Indo-European kort-ús from kret (strong, powerful). Cognate with the German hart, the Swedish hård, the Ancient Greek κρατύς (kratús), the Sanskrit क्रतु (krátu) and the Avestan xratu. Wire was from the Middle English wir & wyr from the Old English wīr (wire, metal thread, wire-ornament) from the Proto-Germanic wīraz (wire) from the primitive Indo-European wehiros (a twist, thread, cord, wire) from wehy (to turn, twist, weave, plait). The suffix ed was used to form past tenses of (regular) verbs and in linguistics is used for the base form of any past form. It was from the Middle English ede & eden, from the Old English ode & odon (a weak past ending) from the Proto-Germanic ōd & ōdēdun. Cognate with the Saterland Frisian ede (first person singular past indicative ending), the Swedish ade and the Icelandic aði. The earliest known citation is from 1969 although there are suggestions the word or its variants had been used earlier, both in electronics and forms of mechanical production, the word migrating to zoology, genetics and human behavioral studies in 1971. The spellings hardwired, hard wired and hard-wired are used interchangeably and no rules or conventions of use have ever emerged.
The coming of the wireless hardware devices really pleased many women who, for whatever reason, often showed an aversion to the sight of cables, whether lying across the floor or cluttering up their desks, noting their curious way of attracting dust and, adding insult to injury, an apparently insoluble tendency to tangle. There are though still genuine advantages to using a cabled connection and although wireless headphones have long been the preferred choice of most, there remains a niche in which the old ways still are the best. The advantages include (1) typically superior sound quality (which obviously can be subjective but there are metrics confirming the higher fidelity), (2) no batteries required, (3) inherently lower latency (thus ideal for gaming, and audio or video editing because of the precision in synchronization, (4) simplified internal construction which should mean lower weight for equivalent dimensions mass and improved reliability and (5) close to universal compatibility with any device with headphone jack or adapter. The drawbacks include (1) one’s physical movement can be limited by the tethering (thus not ideal for workouts), (2) cables can be prone to damage, (3) cables can be prone to snags & tangles, (4) compatibility emerging as an issue on mobile devices with an increasing number lacking headphone jacks or demanding adaptors. Of course for some the existence of Bluetooth pairing will be a compelling reason to go wireless and it has to be admitted the modern devices are now of such quality that even lower cost units are now good enough to please even demand audiophiles.
SysCon
In the pre-modern world of the mainframes, there might be a dozen or thousands of terminals (a monitor & keyboard) attached to a system but there was always one special terminal, SysCon (system console), hardwired to the central processor (something not wholly synonymous with the now familar CPU (central processing unit) in PCs. Unlike other terminals which connected, sometimes over long distances, through repeaters and telephone lines, SysCon, often used by system administrators (who sometimes dubbed themselves "SysCon" the really nerdy ones not using capitals), plugged directly into the core CPU. When Novell released Netware in 1983, they reprised SysCon as the name of the software layer which was the core administration tool.
Google ngram: The pre-twentieth century use of "hardwired" would have been unrelated to the modern senses. Because of the way Google harvests data for their ngrams, they’re not literally a tracking of the use of a word in society but can be usefully indicative of certain trends, (although one is never quite sure which trend(s)), especially over decades. As a record of actual aggregate use, ngrams are not wholly reliable because: (1) the sub-set of texts Google uses is slanted towards the scientific & academic and (2) the technical limitations imposed by the use of OCR (optical character recognition) when handling older texts of sometime dubious legibility (a process AI should improve). Where numbers bounce around, this may reflect either: (1) peaks and troughs in use for some reason or (2) some quirk in the data harvested.
In recent decades, the word “hardwired” has become a popular form, used figuratively to describe traits, behaviors, or tendencies believed to be innate, automatic, or deeply ingrained, the idea being things “permanently programmed into a human or animal”, on the model of the fixed circuitry in an electronic device. Although probably over-used and sometimes with less than admirable precision, the term has come to be well-understood as referring to things (1) biologically pre-determined (instincts, reflexes), (2) psychologically ingrained (personality traits, cognitive biases) or (3) culturally conditioned but so deeply entrenched they appear intrinsic. Even in professions such as medicine, psychiatry & psychology, all noted for their lexicons of technical terms with meanings often (in context) understood only by those with the training, in colloquial use it has become a popular metaphor. It seems also to be an established element in academic writing because it’s such convenient verbal shorthand to convey meaning. In that sense, it’s an acceptable metaphor in a way the phrase “it’s in the DNA” is not because that can be literal in a way “it's hardwired” cannot because living organisms have no wires. DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) is the famous double helix of polymers which constitute the so-called “building blocks” of life and sometimes the expression “it’s in the DNA” simply is incorrect because what’s being discussed is not connected with the double helix and it would be better to say “it’s hardwired” because the latter is vague enough to convey the idea without be so specific as to mislead. The best use of the metaphoric “hardwired” is probably in neuroscience because the brain’s neural circuits may directly be compared with electronic circuitry. The difficulty with using “hardwired” in the behavioural sciences is that very vagueness: it’s not helpful in suggesting where the lines exists between what’s determined by evolution and what are an individual’s temperamental traits. That said, it remains a useful word but, used carelessly, it can overstate biological determinism.
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