Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!bfmny0!tneff
From: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Newsgroups: sci.space.shuttle
Subject: Re: STS-32 Press Kit [Part 2 of 2] (Forwarded)
Message-ID: <14979@bfmny0.UU.NET>
Date: 5 Dec 89 16:44:28 GMT
References: <37350@ames.arc.nasa.gov>
Reply-To: tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET (Tom Neff)
Lines: 21

In article <37350@ames.arc.nasa.gov> Our Favorite Agency sez:
[ The Latitude Longitude Locator includes ]
> ...  a camera computer interface developed by JSC engineers and 
>a Graphics Retrieval and Information Display (GRID) 1139 Compass 
>Computer.

Though we may lag behind the Soviets in the mundane, yucky _flight
hardware_ part of the space race, nobody can lay a glove on our lead in
_acronyms_.  We can even reverse engineer an acronym when needed!  In
this case, the GRiD Systems Inc. Compass computer, selected by the
National Acronym Stockpile Authority (NASA) for auxiliary middeck
computing since 1981 -- but inconveniently innocent of acronymic origins
itself (its inventor was a mariner and just meant "map grid") -- gets
spruced up with something nicely nonsensical. (_Graphics retrieval and
information display_?  Are the graphics stored somewhere?  Does that
parse as "retrieval and information" or "retrieval and display"?)

I guess it's a good thing they didn't buy a Panasonic, huh.
-- 
War is like love; it always      \%\%\%   Tom Neff
finds a way. -- Bertold Brecht   %\%\%\   tneff@bfmny0.UU.NET