Xref: utzoo sci.lang:2306 comp.lang.c:10163
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!osu-cis!att!ncr-sd!greg
From: greg@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM (Greg Noel)
Newsgroups: sci.lang,comp.lang.c
Subject: Re: But what about kernel printfs?
Message-ID: <2219@ncr-sd.SanDiego.NCR.COM>
Date: 16 May 88 23:22:33 GMT
References: <12360@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu> <4659@ihlpf.ATT.COM> <941@cresswell.quintus.UUCP>
Followup-To: sci.lang
Organization: NCR Corporation, Rancho Bernardo
Lines: 20

In article <1102@mcgill-vision.UUCP> mouse@mcgill-vision.UUCP
(der Mouse) writes:
>Does anyone know where this widespread (on the net, at least)
>impression that the privileged part of a system is called its "kernal"
>came from?

One source is that Commodore's trade name for the operating system on the
C-64 is "kernal."  Those people with a microcomputer background would often
see it in the literature spelled that way and would not have realized that
it refered to a specific product and was not a generic term.

>It grates every time I see it, but I generally manage to
>hold myself in check (I know I shouldn't flame spelling).

The one that grates on me is the abuse of "it's."  The use of the apostrophe
is perhaps the only rule in English that has no exceptions -- I certainly
don't know of any others.  There's no excuse for someone intellegent enough
to program a computer to make a mistake using it.
-- 
-- Greg Noel, NCR Rancho Bernardo   Greg.Noel@SanDiego.NCR.COM  or  greg@ncr-sd