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From: lewisd@homxc.UUCP (David Lewis)
Newsgroups: comp.misc,comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.wizards,news.misc,rec.games.trivia
Subject: Re: History
Message-ID: <1252@homxc.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 15-Sep-87 16:27:28 EDT
Article-I.D.: homxc.1252
Posted: Tue Sep 15 16:27:28 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 18-Sep-87 02:08:58 EDT
References: <1266@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Red Hill Site, NJ
Lines: 17
Keywords: History, foo, bar
Summary: fubar
Xref: mnetor comp.misc:1232 comp.unix.questions:4092 comp.unix.wizards:4259 news.misc:928 rec.games.trivia:796

In article <1266@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK>, arnold@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK (Toby Howard) writes:
> I know about the derivation of the ubiquitous "foo bar", but
> what I would like to discover is when it *first* appeared as
> a term of computer jargon. I'd like to track it down. Any help
> gratefully received. Replies by email please.
> 
I seem to recall reading something in William Safire's column in the
New York Times Sunday Magazine about the term's stemming from the
Marine (?) acronym "fubar" and from an early computer instruction
"BAR".  But Safire is generally further off only on teenage lingo than
he is on computer stuff. Anybody else?


-- 

David B. Lewis    {ihnp4,allegra,ulysses}!homxc!lewisd
201-615-5306 EDT