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From: mechjgh@tness1.UUCP
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: History
Message-ID: <15@tnessA.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 22-Sep-87 22:16:16 EDT
Article-I.D.: tnessA.15
Posted: Tue Sep 22 22:16:16 1987
Date-Received: Sat, 26-Sep-87 09:48:36 EDT
References: <1266@mucs.UX.CS.MAN.AC.UK> <1252@homxc.UUCP> <1583@killer.UUCP>
Reply-To: mechjgh@tness1.UUCP (Greg Hackney)
Organization: Southwestern Bell, Network Engineering
Lines: 35
Keywords: History, foo, bar
Summary: History, foo, bar and even "PDP"

In article <1583@killer.UUCP> richardh@killer.UUCP (Richard Hargrove) writes:
>
>How fu (aka foo) and bar got into CS lingo is probably an unanswerable
>question.
>

Step into my office son....  Way back when.....

the aged DEC pdp 11 series of computers, which the ancient ancestors cut
their Unix teeth on ....
had peripheral circuit boards plugged into slots in a "Unibus" cabinet.

A Unibus error, bad board, vector or address problem, would cause woeful
messages on the system console: FUBAR blah blah ..... which the great ones
told me meant "Failure at UniBus Address Register", and is pronounced
foo bar.

One white headed seer, even spoke of the naming convention "PDP".

He said that during the big war, a small company named IBM landed
a government contract to supply ALL "computers". Digital had a neat
little gadget, and they couldn't sell it to the government who had
all contracts for "computers" wrapped up, so DEC called the gadget
a "Programmable Data Processor" and sold it to the government.

I don't know if this is all true my son, but that is how the
legend goes..
....
Interrupt!

FUBAR (8A009)
FMER 8A000999887
             #$% ^&>9888899--

death