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From: maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath)
Newsgroups: comp.lang.c
Subject: Re^2: what is BSS and BSSEND
Message-ID: <2142@solo11.cs.vu.nl>
Date: 9 Mar 89 16:56:39 GMT
References: <15487@cup.portal.com> <9816@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: V.U. Informatica, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Lines: 34

BSS
(uninitialized
data sections)	- It was from an IBM assembly-language mnemonic by the same
		  name, which stood for `Block Started by Symbol'
		  (Block Storage Segment?)

GECOS		- General Electric Comprehensive Operating System/
		  General Electric Computer Operating System

GCOS		- When the large systems division was sold to Honeywell,
		  they dropped the E from GECOS.

the gcos field	- Sometimes we sent printer output or batch jobs to the GCOS
		  machines. The gcos field in the password file was a place to
		  stash the information for the $IDENT card. Not elegant.
		  (Dennis Ritchie)

nroff, troff	- `roff' was the original program, and stood for `RunOFF'.
		  troff = typesetter roff
		  nroff = new roff

tee		- T = T-formed pipe splitter

cat		- short for catenate, one of the approximately 10 primordial
		  Unix commands

C/A/T		- Computer Aided Typesetter
		  not to be confused with the cat command

spool		- Simultaneous Peripheral Output On Line/
		  Simultaneous Peripheral Operation On Line
-- 
 Those against Rushdie haven't          |Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam:
   learned anything from the Dark Ages. |maart@cs.vu.nl, mcvax!botter!maart