Return to BSD News archive
Newsgroups: comp.unix.shell,comp.os.linux.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc,gnu.misc.discuss Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mira.net.au!news.vbc.net!vbcnet-west!samba.rahul.net!rahul.net!a2i!news.pbi.net!news.mathworks.com!howland.erols.net!newsfeed.internetmci.com!in2.uu.net!uucp1.uu.net!world!aml From: aml@world.std.com (Andrew M. Langmead) Subject: Re: unix acronyms -collecting a list? Message-ID: <EAEBLt.EBu@world.std.com> Organization: The World @ Software Tool & Die References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <EA6HHD.AAF@serval.net.wsu.edu> <EA7MIG.6JD@zebra.alphacdc.com> <5levf4$gnc@web.nmti.com> <EA8t12.Bv1@zebra.alphacdc.com> Date: Sun, 18 May 1997 21:27:29 GMT Lines: 18 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45196 comp.os.linux.misc:176088 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3335 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:41237 gnu.misc.discuss:31383 vern@zebra.alphacdc.com (Vern Hoxie) writes: >>In article <EA7MIG.6JD@zebra.alphacdc.com>, >>Vern Hoxie <vern@zebra.alphacdc.com> wrote: >>> 'bss' was the name of a register on the IBM mainframe used to run early >>> UNIX by Ritchie et al. >I had my reference wrong. My information is from "The Design of the UNIX >Operating System", Maurice J. Bach, page 25, Note 2: >---------- >2. The name 'bss' comes from an assembly psuedo-operator on the IBM 7090 >machine, which stood for "block started by symbol." >---------- You were also somehow mistaking a CPU register with an assembler pseudo-opcode. -- Andrew Langmead