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#! rnews 1732 bsd Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.Hawaii.Edu!news.caldera.com!enews.sgi.com!zdc!super.zippo.com!news1.rcsntx.swbell.net!usenet From: cjt <cjt@swbell.net> 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: Sun, 08 Jun 1997 13:13:52 -0700 Organization: Southwestern Bell Internet Services Lines: 12 Distribution: inet Message-ID: <339B1280.15A8@swbell.net> References: <5kd2ng$c8b$1@rzsun02.rrz.uni-hamburg.de> <3378D37F.462F3A47@gaijin.com> <x6iv0l7uxw.fsf@ez.bts.com> <Pine.LNX.3.95.970516130933.5082E-100000@itclub.mur.csu.edu.au> <5lhlri$bfi@web.nmti.com> Reply-To: cjt@swbell.net NNTP-Posting-Host: ppp-207-193-25-12.austtx.swbell.net Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Mailer: Mozilla 3.01C-SBWA (Win16; I) To: Peter da Silva <peter@nmti.com> Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.shell:45840 comp.os.linux.misc:179434 comp.os.linux.x:63825 alt.os.linux:22027 comp.unix.bsd.misc:3529 comp.unix.bsd.freebsd.misc:42608 gnu.misc.discuss:31699 comp.unix.solaris:109005 Peter da Silva wrote: > > The name of the program "su" is taken from the "setuid" system call and the > "set user ID" bit. It's a two letter abbreviation because it was written by > someone using a 110 baud ASR33 teletype with big ugly hard-to-press round > keys. > <snip> This reminds me of the reason a Fortran code I once supported used the variable "U1" extensively as a temporary variable -- on a keypunch, the "1" was a shifted "U," so "U1" could be typed very quickly.