Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rutgers!pyrnj!dasys1!jpr
From: jpr@dasys1.UUCP (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: GCOS field
Message-ID: <7996@dasys1.UUCP>
Date: 30 Nov 88 04:03:40 GMT
References: <17641@adm.BRL.MIL> <8980@smoke.BRL.MIL> <8516@elsie.UUCP> <8990@smoke.BRL.MIL> <8517@elsie.UUCP> <9003@smoke.BRL.MIL> <1257@vsedev.VSE.COM>
Reply-To: jpr@dasys1.UUCP (Jean-Pierre Radley)
Organization: TANGENT
Lines: 19

In article <1257@vsedev.VSE.COM> logan@vsedev.VSE.COM (James Logan III) writes:
>Does anyone know what GCOS really stands for and where it came from?

In my flavor of unix, that's described as the "Comment" field.

In volume 1 of the Unix Programmer's Manual, the old green books, that
field was listed as
	GCOS job number, box number, optional GCOS user-id
and the manual page went on to state:
	The GCOS field is used only when communicating with that system,
	and in other installations can contain any desired information.

Elsewhere in the old green books, I get the implicit, not explicit,
information that GCOS referred to a typesetting system at Murray Hill at
the time that Osanna & Co. were inventing troff.
-- 
Jean-Pierre Radley		Honi soit		jpr@dasys1.UUCP
New York, New York		qui mal			...!hombre!jpradley!jpr
CIS: 76120,1341			y pense			...!hombre!trigere!jpr