Do you happen to be an older North Carolinian? I don't think I've heard anyone use "mash" in this sense since being a bewildered Northerner in an NC elementary school in the 70's when a teacher asked me to "mash the lights". Apparently some light switches once used buttons, and "mash" was (and possibly still is) a regionalism for "press".
Is it used elsewhere too? Personally I'd use "mash" to describe preparing potatoes, and would need it for brewing beer, but I wouldn't have considered that it might be applicable to escaping from ssh. Although searching now, I see that it also seems to be a term-of-the art for rapid button pressing in video games. And I see that suggestions that it's also used in the West Indies.
Would you say "mash <up-arrow> several times until" or "mash <up-arrow> until"? That is, in gaming terminology, would you ever use "mash" to describe pressing a key only a single time? Or does "mash" always describe repeatedly and rapidly pressing a key?
Mash, as it did in the above context, only describes pushing a button rapidly and repeatedly. It can be used interchangably with spam, but usually implys a shorter time frame, and when using spam, you usually name the action, not the button.
To demonstrate the difference:
"After you get knocked out in punch out, mash A to get back up"
"In Quake 2, spamming rockets to protect entryways is the only use for the stupid things."
Do you happen to be an older North Carolinian? I don't think I've heard anyone use "mash" in this sense since being a bewildered Northerner in an NC elementary school in the 70's when a teacher asked me to "mash the lights". Apparently some light switches once used buttons, and "mash" was (and possibly still is) a regionalism for "press".
Is it used elsewhere too? Personally I'd use "mash" to describe preparing potatoes, and would need it for brewing beer, but I wouldn't have considered that it might be applicable to escaping from ssh. Although searching now, I see that it also seems to be a term-of-the art for rapid button pressing in video games. And I see that suggestions that it's also used in the West Indies.