From owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG Sat Dec 20 16:26:50 2003 Return-Path: <owner-freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG> Delivered-To: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org Received: from mx1.FreeBSD.org (mx1.freebsd.org [216.136.204.125]) by hub.freebsd.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 5F41F16A4CE for <chat@freebsd.org>; Sat, 20 Dec 2003 16:26:50 -0800 (PST) Received: from ozlabs.org (ozlabs.org [203.10.76.45]) by mx1.FreeBSD.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 7403643D39 for <chat@freebsd.org>; Sat, 20 Dec 2003 16:26:48 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from grog@lemis.com) Received: from blackwater.lemis.com (blackwater.lemis.com [192.109.197.80]) by ozlabs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id 645562BD0F for <chat@freebsd.org>; Sun, 21 Dec 2003 11:26:46 +1100 (EST) Received: by blackwater.lemis.com (Postfix, from userid 1004) id 8480E5120B; Sun, 21 Dec 2003 10:57:11 +1030 (CST) Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 10:57:11 +1030 From: Greg 'groggy' Lehey <grog@FreeBSD.org> To: "Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P." <kdk@daleco.biz> Message-ID: <20031221002711.GA4438@wantadilla.lemis.com> References: <5.0.2.1.1.20031220224013.02cf25c0@popserver.sfu.ca> <5.0.2.1.1.20031220224013.02cf25c0@popserver.sfu.ca> <5.0.2.1.1.20031220230641.02d15ec0@popserver.sfu.ca> <3FE4E1A4.1080302@daleco.biz> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: multipart/signed; micalg=pgp-sha1; protocol="application/pgp-signature"; boundary="6c2NcOVqGQ03X4Wi" Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: <3FE4E1A4.1080302@daleco.biz> User-Agent: Mutt/1.4.1i Organization: The FreeBSD Project Phone: +61-8-8388-8286 Fax: +61-8-8388-8725 Mobile: +61-418-838-708 WWW-Home-Page: http://www.FreeBSD.org/ X-PGP-Fingerprint: 9A1B 8202 BCCE B846 F92F 09AC 22E6 F290 507A 4223 cc: chat@freebsd.org cc: Bill Moran <wmoran@potentialtech.com> Subject: Re: A bit of trivia: what does usr stand for? X-BeenThere: freebsd-chat@freebsd.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.1 Precedence: list List-Id: Non technical items related to the community <freebsd-chat.freebsd.org> List-Unsubscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-chat>, <mailto:freebsd-chat-request@freebsd.org?subject=unsubscribe> List-Archive: <http://lists.freebsd.org/pipermail/freebsd-chat> List-Post: <mailto:freebsd-chat@freebsd.org> List-Help: <mailto:freebsd-chat-request@freebsd.org?subject=help> List-Subscribe: <http://lists.freebsd.org/mailman/listinfo/freebsd-chat>, <mailto:freebsd-chat-request@freebsd.org?subject=subscribe> X-List-Received-Date: Sun, 21 Dec 2003 00:26:50 -0000 --6c2NcOVqGQ03X4Wi Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline On Saturday, 20 December 2003 at 17:56:20 -0600, Kevin D. Kinsey, DaleCo, S.P. wrote: > Colin Percival wrote: >> At 18:04 20/12/2003 -0500, Bill Moran wrote: >>> Colin Percival wrote: >>>> There's an urban myth floating around that it meant Unix System >>> Resource. >>> >>>> According to denizens of afc, this is likely a backronym, since the >>>> first >>>> use of /usr/ was to store user's files. >>> >>> The urban myth is believeable, though, since it seems silly to >>> abbreviate "user" with "usr" ... I mean, you're only saving 1 >>> letter. >> >> The same could be said about /tmp. I suspect it has less to do >> with abbreviation, and more to do with someone having a broken "e" >> key on their keyboard. ;) > > UNIX is a tad famous for "lazy typists"; Ritchie has been quoted (I > think) as saying Thompson had a grand penchant for brevity or > sparseness. > > Could it be related to storage issues? Three chars and a slash > isn't a biggie anymore, but back then, ?? Somebody smarter than me > might know.... I suspect you've never used a teletype. It's a pain to use, slow and clunky. Each keystroke is a separate effort. Under those circumstances, saving on input is an advantage. File names were 14 characters long, pretty much from the beginning, so I don't think it has anything to do with that. Greg -- See complete headers for address and phone numbers. --6c2NcOVqGQ03X4Wi Content-Type: application/pgp-signature Content-Disposition: inline -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.2.0 (FreeBSD) iD8DBQE/5OjfIubykFB6QiMRAq/IAJ9DZIq7KD5IwUjfyyDI1JwPttkC/gCgoKjj B+nPvaMG8Zd6ZE4g9biCLfU= =kHoc -----END PGP SIGNATURE----- --6c2NcOVqGQ03X4Wi--