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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.uoregon.edu!hammer.uoregon.edu!hunter.premier.net!feed1.news.erols.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in1.uu.net!diamond.waii.com!zeus.wg.waii.com!not-for-mail From: Mark Whetzel <markw@zeus.wg.waii.com> Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: On the Naming of UNIX Things Date: 8 Nov 1996 14:57:51 GMT Organization: Western Geophysical, Div. of Western Atlas Int'l, Houston, TX Lines: 19 Message-ID: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: zeus.wg.waii.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit Summary: history funny unix X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA release 960930] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26173 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1434 alt.folklore.computers:124210 I was having a discussion with some of my co-workers on WHY things are named as they are in UNIX. Anybody have some of the tales behind the odd things that bound in unix history? One question we had of some students we are training: Why are system processes called 'daemons'? Some of the others I have heard about: the naming of 'biff', grep, yacc. E-mail preferred, as I can then post a summary of the BEST of this quest. References to printed material and other net resources appreciated. -- Mark Whetzel My comments are my own, not my company's. Western Geophysical - A division of Western Atlas International Inc., A Subsidiary of Western Atlas Inc. DOMAIN addr: mark.whetzel@waii.com VOICE: (713) 963-2544 FAX: (713) 963-2758