[accrual]

Right, I was just wondering if the developers repurposed the term impulse from the physics engine when creating console commands. "impulse 101" is a common cheat to give all weapons with ammo, but why not "give" or "player.addItem" or something? Just a curiosity.

[sznio]

As for the name "impulse", I don't know - but the way this command works reminds me of interrupts.

The impulse command sends a command to the server instantly, rather than in the usual UserCmd sent to the server 30 times per second. They are used mostly for debugging, just assign #90 to your debugging function, then poke it from the console while the game is running. No need to change and potentially break the network code.