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List of computer term etymologies

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This is a list of the origins of computer-related terms or terms used in the computing world (i.e., alist of computer termetymologies). It relates to bothcomputer hardwareandcomputer software.

Names of many computer terms, especially computer applications, often relate to the function they perform, e.g., acompileris an application thatcompiles(programming languagesource codeinto the computer'smachine language). However, there are other terms with less obvious origins, which are of etymological interest. This article lists such terms.

A

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  • ABEND– originally from anIBM System/360error message, short for "abnormal end". Jokingly reinterpreted asGermanAbend( "evening" ), because "it is what system operators do to the machine late on Friday when they want to call it a day."[1]
  • Ada– named afterAda Lovelace,who is considered by many to be the first programmer.
  • Apache– originally chosen from respect for the Native American Indian tribe ofApache.It was suggested that the name was appropriate, as Apache began as a series ofpatchesto code written forNCSA'sHTTPddaemon.The result was "a patchy" server.[2]

B

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The first case of an actualcomputer bug,a moth trapped in a relay of theHarvard Mark II
  • biff– named after a dog known by the developers atBerkeley,who – according to the UNIXmanual page– died on 15 August 1993, at the age of 15, and belonged to a certain Heidi Stettner. Some sources[5][6]report that the dog would bark at the mail carrier, making it a natural choice for the name of a mail notification system. TheJargon Filecontradicts[7]this description, but confirms at least that the dog existed.
  • Bon– created by Ken Thompson and named either after his wife Bonnie, or else after "a religion whose rituals involve the murmuring of magic formulas" (a reference to the Tibetan native religionBön).[4]
  • bootingorbootstrapping– from the phrase "to pull oneself up by one's bootstraps",originally used as a metaphor for any self-initiating or self-sustaining process. Used in computing due to the apparent paradox that a computer must run code to load anything into memory, but code cannot be run until it is loaded.
  • bug– often (but erroneously) credited toGrace Hopper.In 1946, she joined theHarvardFaculty at the Computation Laboratory where she traced an error in theHarvard Mark IIto amothtrapped in arelay.This bug was carefully removed and taped to the log book. However, use of the word 'bug' to describe defects in mechanical systems dates back to at least the 1870s, perhaps especially inScotland.[citation needed]Thomas Edison,for one, used the term in his notebooks and letters.[10]
  • byte– coined byWerner Buchholzin June 1956 during the early design phase for theIBM Stretchcomputer.[11][12][13][14]

C

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Computer room at Dryden Flight Research Center, 1949
  • C– a programming language.
Dennis Ritchie,having improved on theB language,named his creationNew B.He later renamed itC.(See alsoD).
C++ creatorBjarne Stroustrupnamed his new language "C with Classes" and then "new C". The original language began to be called "old C" which was considered insulting to the C community. At this time Rick Mascitti suggested the name C++ as a successor to C. In C the '++' operator increments the value of thevariableit is appended to, thusC++would increment the value ofC.
The term was coined byweb browserprogrammerLou Montulliafter the term "magic cookies"used byUnixprogrammers. The term "magic cookie"in turn derives from"fortune cookie",a cookie with an embedded message.
  • Cursor (user interface)- Cursor is Latin for 'runner.' A cursor is the name given to the transparent slide engraved with a hairline that is used for marking a point on aslide rule.The term was then transferred to computers through analogy.

D

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  • D– a programming language.
Designed byWalter Brightas an improved C, avoiding many of the design problems of C (e.g.,extensive pointer manipulation, unenforced array boundaries,etc.).
  • daemon– a process in an operating system that runs in the background.
It is not an acronym forDiskAndExecutionMonitor: according to the original team that introduced the concept, the use of the word daemon was inspired by theMaxwell's demonof physics and thermodynamics (an imaginary agent which helped sort molecules with differing velocities and worked tirelessly in the background)[15]The term was embraced, and possibly popularized,[citation needed]by theUnixoperating systems which supported multiple background processes: various local (and later Internet) services were provided by daemons. This is exemplified by theBSDmascot,John Lasseter's drawing of a friendlyimp.
  • Dashboard- Originally, the word dashboard applied to a barrier of wood or leather fixed at the front of a horse-drawn carriage or sleigh to protect the driver from mud or other debris "dashed up" (thrown up) by the horses' hooves.[1] The first known use of the term (hyphenated as dash-board, and applied to sleighs) dates from 1847.[2] Commonly these boards did not perform any additional function other than providing a convenient handhold for ascending into the driver's seat, or a small clip with which to secure the reins when not in use.
  • Debian– aLinux distribution.
Aportmanteauof the namesIan Murdock,the Debian Project creator, and Debra Lynn, Ian's then girlfriend and future wife.[16][17]
  • default– an initial value for a variable or user setting.
The original meaning of the word 'default' is 'failure to fulfill an obligation'. The obligation here is to provide an input that is required by a program. In the early days of programming, if an input value was missing, or 'null', the program would almost certainly crash. This is often to do with variable 'typing' – for example, a simple calculation program would expect a number as an input: any other type of input such as a text string or even a null (no value), would make any mathematical operation such as multiplication impossible. In order to guard against this possibility, programmers defined initial values that would be used if the user *defaulted* or failed to fulfill the obligation of providing the correct input value. Over time, the term 'default' has come to refer to the initial value itself.

E

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According toRobert Metcalfe(one of its initial developers), he devised the name in an early company memo as anendocentric compoundof "luminiferous ether"—the" substance "that was widely believed to be the medium through whichelectromagnetic radiationpropagated in the late 19th century—and "net", short for "network".[18]When the networking team would describe data flowing into the network infrastructure, they would routinely describe it as data packets going "up into the ether".[19]

F

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  • finger–Unixcommand that provides information about users logged into a system.
Les Earnestwrote the finger program in 1971 to provide for users who wanted information about other users on a network or system. According to Earnest, it was named after the act of pointing, because it "bypassed the need to point to a user ID and ask, 'Who is that?'"[20][21]

G

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Gentoo Linux is named afterthe penguin
Named after a variety ofpenguin,the universal Linuxmascot.
In the project's initialREADMEfile,Linus Torvaldswrote that "'git' can mean anything, depending on your mood", and offers several definitions:[23]
  • A random three-letter combination which is pronounceable and not a preexistingUnix command
  • British Englishslang, meaning a stupid or contemptible person
  • An acronym for "global information tracker" (when it works)
  • An acronym for "goddamn idiotic truckload of sh*t" (when it breaks)
When asked about the origin of the name, Torvalds jokingly stated, "I'm an egotistical bastard, and I name all my projects after myself."[24]
Gnu(also called wildebeest) are a genus of Africanantelopesresembling cattle. The founder of the GNU projectRichard Stallmanliked the name because of the humour associated with its pronunciation (officially,/ɡnuː/ⓘ),[25][26]and was also influenced byThe Gnu Song,[27]byFlanders and Swann,which is sung by a gnu. It is also an early example of arecursive acronym:"GNU'sNotUnix ".[28]
The name started as an exaggerated boast about the amount of information the search engine would be able to search. It was originally named 'Googol', a word for the number represented by 1 followed by 100 zeros. The word was originally invented byMilton Sirotta,nephew of mathematician Edward Kasner, in 1938 during a discussion of large numbers and exponential notation.
  • Gopher– an early protocol for distributing documents over a network. Declined in favor of theWorld Wide Web.
The name was coined by developer Farhad Anklesaria, as a play ongofer,an assistant who fetches things, and agopher,who digs, as if through nested hierarchies.[29]The name was also inspired byGoldy Gopher,the mascot for theUniversity of Minnesotawhere the protocol was developed.
The name comes from a command in the Unix text editoredthat takes the formg/re/pmeaning searchglobally for aregularexpression andprint lines where instances are found.[30]"Grep" like "Google" is often used as a verb, meaning "to search".

H

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FounderJack Smithgot the idea of accessing e-mail via the web from a computer anywhere in the world. WhenSabeer Bhatiacame up with the business plan for the mail service, he tried all kinds of names ending in 'mail' and finally settled for Hotmail as it included the letters "HTML"– the markup language used to write web pages. It was initially referred to as HoTMaiL with selective upper casing.

I

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  • i18n– short for "internationalization".
"18" is for the number of letters between theiand then.Related, less common terms includel10n(forlocalization),g11n(forglobalization) anda11y(foraccessibility).
ICQ is not aninitialism.It is a play on the phrase "I seek you" or "Internet seek you" (similar toCQin ham radio usage).[citation needed]
  • ID10T– pronounced "ID ten T" – is a code frequently used by a customer service representative (CSR) to annotate their notes and identify the source of a problem as the person who is reporting the problem rather than the system being blamed. This is a thinly veiled reference to the CSR's opinion that the person reporting the problem is an IDIOT. Example: Problem reported caused by ID10T, no resolution possible. See alsoPEBKAC.[citation needed]

J

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Jakarta was the name of the conference room at Sun where most of the meetings between Sun and Apache took place. The conference room was most likely named afterJakarta,the capital city ofIndonesia,which is located on the northwest coast of the island ofJava.
Named afterjava,a blend ofcoffeefrom the island ofJava,and also used as slang for coffee in general. The language was initially called "Greentalk" and later "Oak", but this was already trademarked byOak Technologies,so the developers had to choose another name shortly before release. Other suggested names were "WebRunner", "DNA", and "Silk".[31]

It was originally developed byBrendan Eichof Netscape under the name "Mocha", which was later renamed to "LiveScript", and finally to "JavaScript".[32]The change of name from LiveScript to JavaScript roughly coincided with Netscape adding support for Java technology in itsNetscape Navigatorweb browser.JavaScript was first introduced and deployed in the Netscape browser version 2.0B3 in December 1995. The naming has caused confusion, giving the impression that the language is a spin-off of Java, and it has been characterized by many as a marketing ploy by Netscape to give JavaScript the cachet of what was then the hot new web-programming language.[33]

K

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When created by programmers atMITin the 1970s, they wanted a name that suggested high security for the project, so they named it afterKerberos,inGreek mythologythe three-headed dog guarding the gates of Hades. The reference to Greek mythology is most likely because Kerberos was developed as part ofProject Athena.[citation needed]

L

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  • Linux– an operating systemkernel,and the common name for many of the operating systems which use it.
Linux creatorLinus Torvaldsoriginally used theMINIXoperating systemon his computer, didn't like it, likedDOSless, and started a project to develop an operating system that would address the problems of MINIX. Hence the working name wasLinux(Linus' Minix). Originally, however, Linus had planned to have it namedFreax(free+freak+x). His friendAri Lemmkeencouraged Linus to upload it to a network so it could be easily downloaded. Ari gave Linus a directory namedlinuxon hisFTP server,as he did not like the nameFreax.
Apple stated that Lisa was an acronym forLocal Integrated Software Architecture;however, it is often inferred that the machine was originally named after the daughter of Apple co-founderSteve Jobs,and that this acronym was invented later to fit the name. Accordingly, two humorous suggestions for expanding the acronym includedLet's Invent Some Acronyms,andLet's Invent Silly Acronyms.
A play on the terms "software" and "hardware". Coined in 1966, the word indicates that sometimes the computer problem is not with the computer itself, but with the user.

M

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The original appleMcIntosh
FromMcIntosh,a popular type of apple.

N

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  • Nerd– A colloquial term for a computer person, especially an obsessive, singularly focused one. Originally created by Dr. Seuss from his bookIf I Ran the Zoo.

O

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Larry Ellison,Ed Oates and Bob Miner were working on a consulting project for the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency). The code name for the project wasOracle(the CIA evidently saw this as a system that would give answers to all questions). The project was designed to use the newly writtenSQLdatabase language fromIBM.The project eventually was terminated but they decided to finish what they started and bring it to the world. They kept the nameOracleand created the RDBMS engine.

P

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The term comes frompaku pakuwhich is a Japaneseonomatopoeiaused for noisy eating; similar tochomp chomp.The game was released in Japan with the namePuck-Man,and released in the US with the namePac-Man,fearing that kids may deface a Puck-Man cabinet by changing thePto anF.
  • Patch– A set of changes to acomputer programor its supporting data designed to update, fix, or improve it.
Historically, software suppliers distributed patches onpaper tapeor onpunched cards,expecting the recipient to cut out the indicated part of the original tape (or deck), and patch in (hence the name) the replacement segment
ThePersonalComputerMemoryCardInternationalAssociation is an international standards body that defines and promotes standards for expansion devices such asmodemsand externalhard disk drivesto be connected tonotebook computers.Over time, the acronym PCMCIA has been used to refer to the PC cardform factorused on notebook computers. A twist on the acronym isPeopleCan'tMemorizeComputerIndustryAcronyms.
  • PEBKAC– an acronym for "Problem Exists Between Keyboard And Chair", which is a code frequently used by a customer service representative (CSR) to annotate their notes and identify the source of a problem as the person who is reporting the problem rather than the system being blamed. This is a thinly veiled reference to the CSR's opinion that the person reporting the problem is the problem. Example: PEBKAC, no resolution possible. See alsoID10T.
  • Pentium– a series ofmicroprocessorsfromIntel.
The fifth microprocessor in the80x86series. It would have been named i586 or 80586, but Intel decided to name itPentium(penta = five) after it lost a trademark infringement lawsuit againstAMDdue to a judgment that numbers like "286", "386", and "486" cannot be trademarked. According to Intel,Pentiumconveys a meaning of strength, liketitanium.[citation needed]
Since some early Pentium chips contained a mathematical precision error, it has been jokingly suggested that the reason for the chip being named Pentium rather than 586 was that Intel chips would calculate 486 + 100 = 585.99999948.
Perl was originally namedPearl,after the "pearl of great price" ofMatthew13:46.[citation needed]Larry Wall,the creator of Perl, wanted to give the language a short name with positive connotations and claims to have looked at (and rejected) every three- and four-letter word in the dictionary. He even thought of naming it after his wife Gloria. Before the language's official release Wall discovered that there was already a programming language namedPearl,and changed the spelling of the name. Although the original manuals suggested thebackronyms"Practical Extraction and Report Language" and "Pathologically Eclectic Rubbish Lister", these were intended humorously.[citation needed]
Originally named "PersonalHomePage Tools "by creatorRasmus Lerdorf,it was rewritten by developersZeev SuraskiandAndi Gutmanswho gave it the recursive name "PHPHypertextPreprocessor ". Lerdorf currently insists the name should not be thought of as standing for anything, for he selected" Personal Home Page "as the name when he did not foresee PHP evolving into a general-purpose programming language.
Many people believe that Pine stands for "PineIsNotElm".However, one of its original authors, Laurence Lundblade, insists this was never the case and that it started off simply as a word and not an acronym; his first choice of abackronymfor pine would be "Pine Is Nearly Elm". Over time it was changed to meanProgram for Internet News and E-mail.[34]
  • ping– a computer network tool used to detect hosts.
The author of ping,Mike Muuss,named it after the pulses of sound made by asonarcalled a "ping". LaterDave Millsprovided the backronym "PacketInternetGroper ".
Named after the television seriesMonty Python's Flying Circus.[35]

R

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Radio buttons got their name from the preset buttons inradio receivers.When one used to select preset stations on a radio receiver physically instead of electronically, depressing one preset button would pop out whichever other button happened to be pushed in.
Company founderMarc Ewingwas given theCornelllacrosseteam cap (with red and white stripes) by his grandfather while at college. People would turn to him to solve their problems, and he was referred to as "that guy in the red hat". He lost the cap and had to search for it desperately. The manual of the beta version of Red Hat Linux had an appeal to readers to return the hat if found by anyone.
Based on the surnames of the authors of this algorithm –RonRivest,AdiShamirandLenAdleman.

S

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The namesambacomes from inserting two vowels into the name of the standard protocol that Microsoft Windows network file system use, namedServer Message Block(SMB). The author searched a dictionary usinggrepfor words containing S M and B in that order; the only matches wereSambaandSalmonberry.
  • shareware– coined byBob Wallaceto describe his word processor PC-Write in early 1983.[citation needed]Before thisJim Knopf(also known as Jim Button) andAndrew Fluegelmancalled their distributed software "user supported software" and "freeware" respectively, but it was Wallace's terminology that prevailed.
  • spam– unwanted repetitious messages, such as unsolicited bulke-mail.
The termspamis derived from theMonty PythonSPAM sketch,set in a cafe where everything on the menu includesSPAMluncheon meat. While a customer plaintively asks for some kind of food without SPAM in it, the server reiterates the SPAM-filled menu. Soon, a chorus of Vikings join in with a song: "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM", over and over again, drowning out all conversation.
  • SPIM– a simulator for a virtual machine closely resembling the instruction set ofMIPS processors,is simply MIPS spelled backwards. In recent time,spimhas also come to meanSPamsent overInstantMessaging.
  • Swing– a graphics library for Java.
Swingwas the code-name of the project that developed the new graphic components (the successor ofAWT). It was named afterswing,a style of dance bandjazzthat was popularized in the 1930s and unexpectedly revived in the 1990s. Although an unofficial name for the components, it gained popular acceptance with the use of the word in the package names for the Swing API, which begin withjavax.swing.[citation needed]

T

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Tomcatwas the code-name for the JSDK 2.1[clarification needed]project insideSun.[citation needed]Tomcat started off as a servlet specification implementation by James Duncan Davidson who was a software architect at Sun. Davidson had initially hoped that the project would be madeopen-source,and since most open-source projects hadO'Reillybooks on them with an animal on the cover, he wanted to name the project after an animal. He came up withTomcatsince he reasoned the animal represented something that could take care of and fend for itself.
  • troff– a document processing system forUnix.
Troffstands for "typesetterroff",although many people have speculated that it actually means" Times roff "because of the use of theTimes font familyin troff by default. Troff has its origins fromroff,an earlier formatting program, whose name is a contraction of "run off".[citation needed]
  • Trojan horse– a malicious program that is disguised as legitimate software.
The term is derived from the classical myth of theTrojan Horse.Analogously, a Trojan horse appears innocuous (or even to be a gift), but in fact is a vehicle for bypassing security.
Linus Torvalds,the creator of Linux, suggested a penguin mascot because he "likes penguins a lot", and wanted Linux to be associated with something "kind of goofy and fun".[36]The logo was originally created byLarry Ewingin 1996 as an entry in a Linux Logo competition. The name Tux was contributed by James Hughes, who suggested "(T)orvolds (U)ni(X) —TUX!"[37]

U

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Derived fromubuntu,a South African ideology.
WhenBell Labspulled out of the MULTiplexed Information and Computing System (MULTICS) project, which was originally a joint Bell Labs/GE/MITproject,Ken Thompsonof Bell Labs, soon joined byDennis Ritchie,wrote a simpler version of the operating system for a spare DEC minicomputer, allegedly found in a corridor. They needed an OS to run the gameSpace Travel,which had been compiled under MULTICS. The new OS was named UNICS –UNiplexedInformation andComputingSystem by Brian Kernighan.

V

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Initialism forvisual, a command in theexeditor which helped users to switch to the visual mode from the ex mode. the first version was written byBill Joyat UC Berkeley.
Acronym forViimproved after Vim added several features over thevieditor. Vim however had started out as an imitation of Vi and was expanded asViimitation.
The termviruswas first used as a technical computer science term byFred Cohenin his 1984 paper "Computer Viruses Theory and Experiments", where he creditsLen Adlemanwith coining it. Although Cohen's use ofvirusmay have been the first academic use, it had been in the common parlance long before that. A mid-1970sscience fictionnovel byDavid Gerrold,When H.A.R.L.I.E. was One,includes a description of a fictional computer program namedVIRUSthat worked just like a virus (and was countered by a program namedANTIBODY). The term "computer virus" also appears in thecomic book"UncannyX-Men"No. 158, published in 1982. A computer virus's basic function is to insert its own executable code into that of other existing executable files, literally making it the electronic equivalent to the biological virus, the basic function of which is to insert its genetic information into that of the invaded cell, forcing the cell to reproduce the virus.

W

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Coined byWard Cunningham,the creator of the wiki concept, who named them for the "wiki wiki" or "quick" shuttle buses at Honolulu Airport. Wiki wiki was the firstHawaiianterm he learned on his first visit to the islands. The airport counter agent directed him to take the wiki wiki bus between terminals.
The name 'worm' was taken from a 1970sscience fictionnovel byJohn BrunnerentitledThe Shockwave Rider.The book describes programs known as "tapeworms" which spread through a network for the purpose of deleting data. Researchers writing an early paper on experiments in distributed computing noted the similarities between their software and the program described by Brunner, and adopted that name.
  • WYSIWYG– describes a system in which content during editing appears very similar to the final product.
Acronym forWhat You See Is What You Get,the phrase was originated by a newsletter published by Arlene and Jose Ramos, named WYSIWYG. It was created for the emerging Pre-Press industry going electronic in the late 1970s.

X

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X derives its name as a successor to a pre-1983 window system named theW Window System.

Y

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Yahoo!'s history site says the name is an acronym for "Yet Another Hierarchical Officious Oracle", but some remember that in its early days (mid-1990s), when Yahoo! lived on a server named akebono.stanford.edu, it was glossed as "Yet Another Hierarchical Object Organizer." The word "Yahoo!" was originally invented byJonathan Swiftand used in his bookGulliver's Travels.It represents a person who is repulsive in appearance and action and is barely human. Yahoo! founders Jerry Yang and David Filo selected the name because they considered themselves yahoos.

Z

[edit]
The file format was created byPhil Katz,and given the name by his friend Robert Mahoney. The compression tool Phil Katz created was namedPKZIP.Zip means "speed", and they wanted to imply their product would be faster than ARC and other compression formats of the time.

See also

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References

[edit]
  1. ^The New Hacker's Dictionary.Compiled byEric S. Raymond(Third ed.). MIT Press. 1996. p. 34.ISBN978-0-262-18178-5.{{cite book}}:CS1 maint: others (link)
  2. ^ "FAQ – Httpd Wiki".Retrieved15 November2012.
  3. ^Hamilton, Naomi (27 May 2008)."The A-Z of Programming Languages: AWK".ComputerWorld.au.Retrieved15 November2012.
  4. ^abRitchie, Dennis M.(March 1993)."The Development of the C Language".ACM SIGPLAN Notices.28(3): 201–208.doi:10.1145/155360.155580.TheB language'sname most probably represents a contraction of BCPL, though an alternate theory holds that it derives from Bon [Thompson 69], an unrelated language created by Thompson during the Multics days. Bon in turn was named either after his wife Bonnie, or (according to an encyclopedia quotation in its manual), after a religion whose rituals involve the murmuring of magic formulas.
  5. ^Cooper, Eric."biff: Did You Know?".Archived fromthe originalon 13 November 2012.Retrieved17 November2012.
  6. ^"What does {some strange unix command name} stand for?".UNIXguide.net.Retrieved17 November2012.
  7. ^"Jargon File: biff".Retrieved17 November2012.
  8. ^Shannon, Claude E.(July 1948)."A Mathematical Theory of Communication".The Bell System Technical Journal.27(3): 379–423.doi:10.1002/j.1538-7305.1948.tb01338.x.hdl:10338.dmlcz/101429.Archived fromthe originalon 1 October 2007.Retrieved20 November2012.The choice of a logarithmic base corresponds to the choice of a unit for measuring information. If the base 2 is used the resulting units may be called binary digits, or more brieflybits,a word suggested by J. W. Tukey.
  9. ^Dyson, George(29 March 2012).Darwin Among the Machines.Penguin Books Limited. p. 98.ISBN9780718196950.
  10. ^Edison to Puskas, 13 November 1878, Edison papers, Edison National Laboratory, U.S. National Park Service, West Orange, N.J., cited in Thomas P. Hughes, American Genesis: A History of the American Genius for Invention, Penguin Books, 1989,ISBN0-14-009741-4,on page 75.
  11. ^Bemer, Robert William(8 August 2000)."Why is a byte 8 bits? Or is it?".Computer History Vignettes.Archived fromthe originalon 3 April 2017.Retrieved3 April2017.[…] WithIBM'sSTRETCHcomputer as background, handling 64-character words divisible into groups of 8 (I designed the character set for it, under the guidance of Dr.Werner Buchholz,the man who DID coin the term "byte"for an 8-bit grouping). […] TheIBM 360used 8-bit characters, although not ASCII directly. Thus Buchholz's "byte" caught on everywhere. I myself did not like the name for many reasons. […]
  12. ^Buchholz, Werner(11 June 1956)."7. The Shift Matrix"(PDF).The Link System.IBM.pp. 5–6.StretchMemo No. 39G. Archived fromthe original(PDF)on 4 April 2017.Retrieved4 April2016.[…] Most important, from the point of view of editing, will be the ability to handle any characters or digits, from 1 to 6 bits long […] the Shift Matrix to be used to convert a 60-bitword,coming from Memory in parallel, intocharacters,or "bytes"as we have called them, to be sent to theAdderserially. The 60 bits are dumped intomagnetic coreson six different levels. Thus, if a 1 comes out of position 9, it appears in all six cores underneath. […] The Adder may accept all or only some of the bits. […] Assume that it is desired to operate on 4 bitdecimal digits,starting at the right. The 0-diagonal is pulsed first, sending out the six bits 0 to 5, of which the Adder accepts only the first four (0-3). Bits 4 and 5 are ignored. Next, the 4 diagonal is pulsed. This sends out bits 4 to 9, of which the last two are again ignored, and so on. […] It is just as easy to use all six bits inAlpha numericwork, or to handle bytes of only one bit for logical analysis, or to offset the bytes by any number of bits. […]
  13. ^Buchholz, Werner(February 1977)."The Word" Byte "Comes of Age..."Byte Magazine.2(2): 144.[…] The first reference found in the files was contained in an internal memo written in June 1956 during the early days of developingStretch.Abytewas described as consisting of any number of parallel bits from one to six. Thus a byte was assumed to have a length appropriate for the occasion. Its first use was in the context of the input-output equipment of the 1950s, which handled six bits at a time. The possibility of going to 8 bit bytes was considered in August 1956 and incorporated in the design of Stretch shortly thereafter. The first published reference to the term occurred in 1959 in a paper "Processing Data in Bits and Pieces" byG A Blaauw,F P Brooks JrandW Buchholzin theIRE Transactions on Electronic Computers,June 1959, page 121. The notions of that paper were elaborated in Chapter 4 ofPlanning a Computer System (Project Stretch),edited by W Buchholz,McGraw-Hill Book Company(1962). The rationale for coining the term was explained there on page 40 as follows:
    Bytedenotes a group of bits used to encode a character, or the number of bits transmitted in parallel to and from input-output units. A term other thancharacteris used here because a given character may be represented in different applications by more than one code, and different codes may use different numbers of bits (ie, different byte sizes). In input-output transmission the grouping of bits may be completely arbitrary and have no relation to actual characters. (The term is coined frombite,but respelled to avoid accidental mutation tobit.)
    System/360took over many of the Stretch concepts, including the basic byte and word sizes, which are powers of 2. For economy, however, the byte size was fixed at the 8 bit maximum, and addressing at the bit level was replaced by byte addressing. […]
  14. ^Blaauw, Gerrit Anne;Brooks, Jr., Frederick Phillips;Buchholz, Werner(1962),"4: Natural Data Units"(PDF),inBuchholz, Werner(ed.),Planning a Computer System – Project Stretch,McGraw-Hill Book Company, Inc./ The Maple Press Company, York, PA., pp. 39–40,LCCN61-10466,archived(PDF)from the original on 3 April 2017,retrieved3 April2017
  15. ^"The Origin of the word Daemon".
  16. ^Nixon, Robin (2010).Ubuntu: Up and Running.O'Reilly Media.p.3.ISBN978-0-596-80484-8.
  17. ^About Debian
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  21. ^Earnest, Les (29 October 2017)."How a nosy bureaucrat accidentally created the first social networking and blogging service".web.stanford.edu.Retrieved30 April2021.
  22. ^Eastlake, D.; Manros, C.;Raymond, E.(1 April 2001)."RFC 3092 – Etymology of" Foo "".doi:10.17487/RFC3092.Retrieved15 November2012.{{cite journal}}:Cite journal requires|journal=(help)
  23. ^"Initial revision of 'git', the information manager from hell · git/git@e83c516".GitHub.Archivedfrom the original on 8 October 2017.Retrieved21 January2016.
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  25. ^"What is GNU?".The GNU Operating System.Free Software Foundation.4 September 2009.Retrieved9 October2009.The name 'GNU' is arecursive acronymfor 'GNU's Not Unix'; it is pronouncedg-noo,as one syllable with no vowel sound between thegand then.
  26. ^Stallman, Richard(9 March 2006).The Free Software Movement and the Future of Freedom.Zagreb, Croatia:FSF Europe.Retrieved20 February2007.
  27. ^The Gnu Song
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