wd@samsa.pcs.com (wd) (06/28/90)
rtidd@mwunix.mitre.org (Randall Tidd) writes: ->In article <54483@lanl.gov> rdw2030@venus.tamu.edu writes: ->> ->>For SO LONG I have wondered what the heck FOO stands for! I once knew, but ->>now I don't. And it's bothered me every time I've seen it since! ->> ->>HELP!! ->> ->>Mark C. Lowe - KB5III ->My guess is that it's from the game Adventure (distributed with many ->unix systems). There's an evil Giant in there, and he's heard to say: Have a look at the JARGON FILE! It will explain about FOO, BAR and a lot of other hacker terms! It has been posted to comp.misc by eric@snark.thyrsus.com (Eric S. Raymond) about 2 weeks ago. ================================================================== Name : Wolfgang Denk Company : PCS GmbH, Pfaelzer-Wald-Str. 36, 8000 Munich W-Germany. UUCP : ..[pyramid ;uunet!unido]!pcsbst!wd (PYRAMID PREFERRED!!) DOMAIN : wd@pcsbst.pcs.[ COM From rest of world; DE From Europe ]
panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek) (07/03/90)
In <54483@lanl.gov>, Mark C. Lowe writes >For SO LONG I have wondered what the heck FOO stands for! I once knew, but >now I don't. And it's bothered me every time I've seen it since! > >HELP!! It's my belief that FOO predates ADVENTURE, and its appearance there was simply an indication of its earlier existence. My leanings are to side with those who advocate its military origins (FUBAR). On the other hand, there's one other notable possibility: A *long* time ago I actually did assembler and Fortran/4 coding on an IBM/1130. There were a series of run-time errors whose error codes were things like F003 Divide by zero F001 Printer not ready and the like. When the machine ran into one of these, it would load the hex code into the accumulator and halt. The accumulator could be read out on the operator's control panel in (incandescent) bit indicators. The astute programmer would quickly recognize these "FOO" errors, and would no longer have to thumb through the 27 shelf-inches of manuals to find the page which explained what the codes meant. My father was familiar with these codes, referring to them as "FOO" errors. His experience was on some machine which was already old in the mid-60's. In the other direction, I believe many of these codes were carried forward into the IBM/360 and IBM/370 machines. This explanation would go a long ways to explaining why "FOO" has appeared in the hacker community, as well as some support for its age. Any agreement on this? Jon Panek HP Andover
hart@blackjack.dt.navy.mil (Michael Hart) (07/04/90)
In <13530001@hp-and.HP.COM> panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek) writes: >In <54483@lanl.gov>, Mark C. Lowe writes >>For SO LONG I have wondered what the heck FOO stands for! I once knew, but >>now I don't. And it's bothered me every time I've seen it since! >> >>HELP!! >It's my belief that FOO predates ADVENTURE, and its appearance there was >simply an indication of its earlier existence. My leanings are to side >with those who advocate its military origins (FUBAR). On the other hand, >there's one other notable possibility: > F003 Divide by zero > F001 Printer not ready >and the like. When the machine ran into one of these, it would load the >This explanation would go a long ways to explaining why "FOO" has >appeared in the hacker community, as well as some support for its >age. >Any agreement on this? I would have to agree with the military origin; especially as FOO is usually seen in close proximity to it's brother variable, BAR. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael G. Hart hart@blackjack.dt.navy.mil / mhart@dtrc.dt.navy.mil DTRC/DoD | "Wherever you go, there you are."- me DISCLAIMER: If you want the Navy's opinion, talk to Secretary Cheney. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Michael G. Hart hart@blackjack.dt.navy.mil / mhart@dtrc.dt.navy.mil DTRC/DoD | "Wherever you go, there you are."- me DISCLAIMER: If you want the Navy's opinion, talk to Secretary Cheney.
kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) (07/05/90)
In article <hart.647056068@blackjack> hart@blackjack.dt.navy.mil (Michael Hart) writes: >In <13530001@hp-and.HP.COM> panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek) writes: > > >> F003 Divide by zero >> F001 Printer not ready > >>and the like. When the machine ran into one of these, it would load the >>This explanation would go a long ways to explaining why "FOO" has >>appeared in the hacker community, as well as some support for its >>age. > >>Any agreement on this? > >I would have to agree with the military origin; especially as >FOO is usually seen in close proximity to it's brother variable, >BAR. > I dunnow. It seems to me that given the FOO name for the errors, the BAR part would come right along (from the military). It makes a lot more sense than converting FU to FOO. If someone can confirm the F00x errors, then I'd call it the definitive answer to FOO's origin. -- _ Kevin D. Quitt demott!kdq kdq@demott.com DeMott Electronics Co. 14707 Keswick St. Van Nuys, CA 91405-1266 VOICE (818) 988-4975 FAX (818) 997-1190 MODEM (818) 997-4496 PEP last 96.37% of all statistics are made up.
paul@prcrs.UUCP (Paul Hite) (07/06/90)
In article <13530001@hp-and.HP.COM>, panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek) writes: > A *long* time ago I actually did assembler and Fortran/4 coding on > an IBM/1130. There were a series of run-time errors whose error codes > were things like > > F003 Divide by zero > F001 Printer not ready > > Any agreement on this? > > Jon Panek > HP Andover No way, Jon. Fubar predates even the 1130. The 1130 had many series of error codes. 9000 was 1403 printer not ready and 9xxx indicated other trouble with the 1403. The Fxxx series were errors detected by the Fortran library, so if you got these from assembler, you either loaded the accumulator yourself and halted or you called the Fortran library from assembler. There were dozens of these and only a few were of the form F00x. I lived in terror of F101... Paul Hite PRC Realty Systems McLean,Va uunet!prcrs!paul (703) 556-2243 DOS is a four letter word!
lwh@harpsichord.cis.ohio-state.edu (Loyde W. Hales II) (07/06/90)
>In article <hart.647056068@blackjack> hart@blackjack.dt.navy.mil (Michael Hart) writes: >>In <13530001@hp-and.HP.COM> panek@hp-and.HP.COM (Jon Panek) writes: >>> F003 Divide by zero >>> F001 Printer not ready >> >>>and the like. When the machine ran into one of these, it would load the >>>This explanation would go a long ways to explaining why "FOO" has >>>appeared in the hacker community, as well as some support for its >>>age. >> >>>Any agreement on this? >>I would have to agree with the military origin; especially as >>FOO is usually seen in close proximity to it's brother variable, >>BAR. In article <369@demott.COM> kdq@demott.COM (Kevin D. Quitt) writes: > I dunnow. It seems to me that given the FOO name for the errors, >the BAR part would come right along (from the military). It makes a lot >more sense than converting FU to FOO. I disagree, for several reasons. First, it is common to distort spellings, particularly when you are taking spoken word. Look at how many words in (American) English are mispelled words (in British English). Much less the number of words with multiple spellings considered correct. If you want to test this, though, go to an introductory course for Computer Science and throw out terminology without writing it on the board. Then give a quiz. I'll bet you'll get several mispellings and homonymns. - Personally, if someone said *fu* to me, I'd think to spell it Foo, unless I knew it had Oriental origins. Besides, FOOBAR is a polite version of FUBAR anyway. -=- Department of Computer and Information Science Loyde W. Hales, II The Ohio State University lwh@cis.ohio-state.edu 2036 Neil Avenue Mall, Columbus, Ohio 43210
fetter@cos.com (Bob Fetter) (07/07/90)
Does this mean that nobody remembers 'Smokey Stover', the comic strip that had the alley cat in many of the panels which was always saying "foo"? This was running during the 30s and 40s, most certainly before Fortran error codes *and* WWII. I seem to remember a reference to this in the old jargon files that were on the net in the late 70's, but I'm not sure anymore. Between that, and the fat cook who always had buttons popping off and being caught by a chicken, and other "hidden" sayings/messages, I almost now consider 'Smokey Stover' to have been the 'Zippy' of the Depression. Not that I'm even *close* enough old to have read the originals..... -Bob-