Bill Poser <POSER@SU-CSLI.ARPA> (11/24/84)
The genesis of the program name joff will become clearer if you know that the Bell-internal name of the BLIT was the Jerq. That's what it was called until the marketing types got wind of it. I haven't used a BLIT since I left Bell Labs 15 months ago, but the system directories for the BLIT were still called things like /user/jerq. -------
fred@mot.UUCP (Fred Christiansen) (12/05/84)
[] internet!Bill's follow-on to Doug Gwyn @ BRL's TOC of the BSTJ special on Unix mentioned that the Teletype 5620 (aka Blit) was once called the Jerq, from whence one should be able to deduce the meaning of the program name joff. since i haven't seen any out-and-out statement on the meaning here's my submission (haven't had a chance to see the journal, so i didn't cheat). Tom Cargill is a Univ of Waterloo grad. I seem to recall a program on watbun called boff, meaning B Obscure Feature Finder. I suspect that joff is the equivalent for the Jerq.
gnu@sun.uucp (John Gilmore) (12/12/84)
mot!fred says: > internet!Bill's follow-on to Doug Gwyn @ BRL's TOC of the BSTJ special > on Unix mentioned that the Teletype 5620 (aka Blit) was once called the > Jerq, from whence one should be able to deduce the meaning of the program > name joff. since i haven't seen any out-and-out statement on the meaning > here's my submission (haven't had a chance to see the journal, so i didn't > cheat). > > Tom Cargill is a Univ of Waterloo grad. I seem to recall a program on > watbun called boff, meaning B Obscure Feature Finder. I suspect that > joff is the equivalent for the Jerq. I think he's gotten to the meat of the topic and has things well in hand.
cdshaw@watmath.UUCP (Chris Shaw) (12/19/84)
Actually, the terminal known as BLIT (now) was named jerq by its inventors as a rip-off of perq, which is a reasonably nice & expensive Mac-oid machine.
henry@utzoo.UUCP (Henry Spencer) (12/19/84)
> Actually, the terminal known as BLIT (now) was named jerq by its > inventors as a rip-off of perq, which is a reasonably nice & expensive > Mac-oid machine. Cough, choke, splutter. You obviously never tried to write a C compiler for the Perq. Furthermore, you obviously have not used the Perq software much. The machine is brain-damaged (except for its RasterOp box, which is good and really fast); the software is worse. Furthermore, the cpu is significantly slower than a Sun at a substantially higher price. "Jerq" was not a ripoff of "Perq", it was a snide comment on the Perq, originally made by people who had worked with Perqs a lot and knew them all too well. -- Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology {allegra,ihnp4,linus,decvax}!utzoo!henry
John Zsarnay@CMU-CS-A.ARPA (M100JZ04) (12/22/84)
I second the opinion made by Henry Spencer (@ U of Toronto Zoology) about the Perq. I also have investigated writing a C compiler for this machine and can personally attest to it being brain-damaged. Furthermore, if ANYONE is considering buying one of these pieces of junk I suggest you check first with me or anyone here at CMU. We (unfortunately) have a great deal of experience using these machines. John Zsarnay (Zsarnay@CMU-CS-A.ARPA)