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From: Michael Salmon <Michael.Salmon@uab.ericsson.se>
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: Tue, 20 May 1997 17:04:38 +0200
Organization: Ericsson Utvecklings AB
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Stefan Monnier wrote:
> 
> wcochran@eecs.wsu.edu (Wayne Cochran - CS) writes:
> > what does bss stand for
> 
> I alwayss thought of it as "Bulk Storage Section", but I admit that the last
> "s" is unclear.

Nope, it means Block Started by Symbol, a reserved but uninitialized
area that starts at a symbolic address. It come from an IBM(?) assembler
though one would expect that it came from GE/Honeywell. The is also BES,
Block Ended by Symbol but that was for fortran.

My favorite acronym is ls, List Structure, apparently borrowed directly
from multics.

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