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From: panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: !?!?  FOO???
Message-ID: <13530001@hp-and.HP.COM>
Date: 2 Jul 90 20:44:15 GMT
References: <54483@lanl.gov>
Organization: HP Andover Division (Massachusetts)
Lines: 39

In <54483@lanl.gov>, Mark C. Lowe writes

>For SO LONG I have wondered what the heck FOO stands for!  I once knew, but
>now I don't.  And it's bothered me every time I've seen it since!
>
>HELP!!

It's my belief that FOO predates ADVENTURE, and its appearance there was
simply an indication of its earlier existence.  My leanings are to side
with those who advocate its military origins (FUBAR).  On the other hand,
there's one other notable possibility:

A *long* time ago I actually did assembler and Fortran/4 coding on 
an IBM/1130.  There were a series of run-time errors whose error codes 
were things like

	F003		Divide by zero
	F001		Printer not ready

and the like.  When the machine ran into one of these, it would load the
hex code into the accumulator and halt.  The accumulator could be read
out on the operator's control panel in (incandescent) bit indicators.
The astute programmer would quickly recognize these "FOO" errors, and
would no longer have to thumb through the 27 shelf-inches of manuals 
to find the page which explained what the codes meant.  

My father was familiar with these codes, referring to them as "FOO"
errors.  His experience was on some machine which was already old in
the mid-60's.  In the other direction, I believe many of these codes
were carried forward into the IBM/360 and IBM/370 machines.

This explanation would go a long ways to explaining why "FOO" has
appeared in the hacker community, as well as some support for its
age.

Any agreement on this?

Jon Panek
HP Andover