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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!feed1.news.erols.com!zdc!super.zippo.com!enews.sgi.com!news.corp.sgi.com!news.sgi.com!csulb.edu!drivel.ics.uci.edu!news.cs.ucla.edu!not-for-mail From: Scott Michel <scottm@cs.ucla.edu> Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.os.linux.x,alt.os.linux,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss,comp.unix.solaris Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Date: 17 May 1997 04:05:37 GMT Organization: UCLA CS Dept Lines: 23 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <5ljaqh$spn@delphi.cs.ucla.edu> References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <Pine.SUN.3.95.970513170134.19438A-100000@omni2> <Pine.GSO.3.96.970513200952.7143D-100000@tree.Stanford.EDU> <EA6HHD.AAF@serval.net.wsu.edu> <EA7MIG.6JD@zebra.alphacdc.com> <x7911guc7t.fsf@pc37.mpn.cp.philips.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: taliesin.cs.ucla.edu Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Newsreader: TIN [UNIX 1.3 unoff BETA release 970120] Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45101 comp.os.linux.misc:175760 comp.os.linux.x:61814 alt.os.linux:21271 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3295 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41097 gnu.misc.discuss:31340 comp.unix.solaris:106761 In gnu.misc.discuss Jim Reid <jim@pc37.mpn.cp.philips.com> alleges: : vern@zebra.alphacdc.com (Vern Hoxie) writes: : > 'bss' was the name of a register on the IBM mainframe used to run early : > UNIX by Ritchie et al. : Nope. Early UNIX systems did not run on IBM mainframes. The name BSS - : Block Symbol by Segment I think was the acronym - derives from some : dinosaur OS from the 70's (IBM?) where it referred to a chunk of a : process's address space that was zeroed at startup. This was more or : less the same thing as the uninitialised data segment of a UNIX : process. Sounds better when pronounced 'basic scratch space'. -scottm -- Scott Michel Graduate School: UCLA Computer Science It's Not Just A Job. PhD Student It's An Indenture. "AND STOP CALLING ME Scooter!" :-)