Source : Free On-Line Dictionary of Computing

DEADBEEF
     
         /ded-beef/ The {hexadecimal} pattern
        used to fill words of freshly allocated memory under a number
        of {IBM} environments including the {RS/6000}; equal to
        decimal 3,735,928,559 (unsigned) or -559,038,737 (32-bit
        signed).  As in "Your program is DEADBEEF" (meaning gone,
        aborted, flushed from memory).
     
        (1998-06-29)