Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!mcvax!enea!kuling!irf From: irf@kuling.UUCP (Stellan Bergman) Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions Subject: Re: UNIX NAME ABBREVIATIONS Message-ID: <564@kuling.UUCP> Date: 1 Dec 87 07:30:45 GMT References: <10376@brl-adm.ARPA> <16550@topaz.rutgers.edu> <388@cogen.UUCP> <6706@brl-smoke.ARPA> <7996@steinmetz.steinmetz.UUCP> <897@pembina.UUCP> Reply-To: irf@kuling.UUCP (Stellan Bergman) Organization: Dept. of Computer Systems, Uppsala University, Sweden Lines: 14 In article <897@pembina.UUCP> steve@pembina.UUCP (Steve Sutphen) writes: >One command (that first appeared in Version 5 in 5/15/74) that isn't >immediately obvious in its entymology is `dd'. My guess is that the >author really wanted to call it `cc' (for Convert and Copy -- the >title on the `man' page) but that letter pair was already used. I always thought that this command was a copy of the corresponding IBM/JCL command. After all it is not very UNIX-like with a syntax dd if=/dev/rmt0 ibs=800 conv=ascii,lcase or whatever. (Remember that "SYSIN DD *" torture ...?) Bo Thide', Swedish Institute of Space Physics, UUCP: ..enea!kuling!irfu!bt