Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!cbosgd!wright!jsloan From: jsloan@wright.UUCP Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: UNIX NAME ABBREVIATIONS Message-ID: <195@wright.EDU> Date: Wed, 25-Nov-87 08:55:11 EST Article-I.D.: wright.195 Posted: Wed Nov 25 08:55:11 1987 Date-Received: Sun, 29-Nov-87 03:19:06 EST References: <1051@swlabs.UUCP> Organization: Wright State University, Dayton OH, 45435 Lines: 27 in article <1051@swlabs.UUCP>, jack@swlabs.UUCP (Jack Bonn) says: > In article <6706@brl-smoke.ARPA> gwyn@brl.arpa (Doug Gwyn (VLD/VMB)) writes: >>In article <388@cogen.UUCP> alen@cogen.UUCP (Alen Shapiro) writes: >>> "spool" (Simultaneous Peripheral Operation Off Line) >>I suspect this is revisionist acronym retrofitting. > I agree. I thought spool referred to the spool of magtape that you hung > to collect the line printer data for later. Remember magtapes? SPOOL cannot be that revisionist, because I remember it from an IBM manual from my previous reincarnation as a systems programmers on mainframes (360/65 with MFT is my earliest memory, although I have some regressed racial memories of an 1130). I seem to recall reading about the SPOOL acronym in a HASP manual (Houston Automatic Spooling Program, or Houston Automatic Spooling Priority system, depending on what manual you read, although my "official" SHARE IBM acronym manual from 1977 lists the latter definition). How many other acronyms have come into such common use that we take them for words rather than acronyms? How many acronyms that originated in the IBM mainframe environment has the UNIX community (perhaps unwittingly) adopted? -- John Sloan Wright State University Research Center jsloan@SPOTS.Wright.Edu 3171 Research Blvd., Kettering, OH 45420 ...!cbosgd!wright!jsloan (513) 259-1384 (513) 873-2491 Logic Disclaimer: belong(opinions,jsloan). belong(opinions,_):-!,fail.