4 ms·
From esr's Jargon File: > The name itself came from FOO NLI, an error message emitted by a PDP-10 assembler at SAIL meaning “FOO is Not a Legal Identifier” I
by alexjplant 4y ago
From esr's Jargon File:
> The name itself came from FOO NLI, an error message emitted by a PDP-10 assembler at SAIL meaning “FOO is Not a Legal Identifier”
I find old hacker culture endlessly fascinating and endearing. All of my machine [host]names have "foonly" someplace in the name (foonly-fenix, macfoonly, microfoonly, foonly-iv, etc.) as a tribute to these machines.
- benj111 4y agoClearly the name came from i(f only) we had more toggle switches. This machine is also the source of foo, as in foo bar baz, as in if only we had more toggle switches, Barry could program the ba'z'ic interpreter quicker.