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> (The extension of "DIZ" actually stands for "Description In Zip") Ah, finally, another puzzlement from my childhood explained.
by Joker_vD 2y ago
> (The extension of "DIZ" actually stands for "Description In Zip")
Ah, finally, another puzzlement from my childhood explained.
- fullstop 2y agoAs a kid, I always assumed that it was "description" but in some other language which I was unfamiliar with.
- spitfire 2y agoLeetspeak. As a kid, you should have known leetspeak.
- bytearray 2y agoUm, I think you mean 1337
- Scotrix 2y agonot to be mistaken with 31337 ;-)
- 31337Logic 2y agoOh, hi there! ;^)
- dylan604 2y agoYes, but which color book was this term first used? Then we'll establish how l337 you are or are not
- fragmede 2y agohttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U9MI0u2VIE https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4U9MI0u2VIE https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/10997/were-any-of-the-books-mentioned-in-this-scene-from-the-movie-hackers-real https://retrocomputing.stackexchange.com/questions/10997/wer... great scene.
- herodoturtle 2y agoI’m the biggest fan of Hackers but that scene has always irked me. They’re all so impressed with Dade’s knowledge yet he simply appears to be reading the cover title of each book as it gets passed. Someone please give me a meta explanation that justifies this so that my inner fanboy can sleep better at night. I’ve probably watched Hackers 100s of times. Best love story ever.
- doublerabbit 2y agoThe nicknames given to each book is what he's being tested on. "The dragoon book", "That ugly red book that wont sit on the shelf" and so on.
- fragmede 2y agophysical books weren't just given away to anyone who asked back then, so getting a copy of one is an achievement in the first place so the assumption is if you got it, you read it and by reading the title out loud he's saying I know what's in those books, like the anarchist cookbook
- xtracto 2y agoI think .diz preceeded leetspeak by a couple of years.
- euroderf 2y agoFWIW, leetspeak is just a calligraphic flourish away from feetspeak.
- lloeki 2y agoI assumed it was short for "distribution", stylised.
- ahartmetz 2y agoI thought it was leetspeak for "this", so FILE_ID.DIZ was "file to identify this"
- BennyH26 2y agoSame here. This is the first thing I looked up when I saw the article.
- drbig 2y agoIndeed!
- cdchn 2y agoI was under the impression the DIZ was because it first appeared on a BBS called DiZZYboard iirc
- foresto 2y agoI assumed it was because "diz" was "zip" rotated 180°. "Description In Zip" seems like it could be a backronym.
- lloeki 2y agoI remember those as far back as filesystems were 8.3 all caps, so D would not rotate to P though.
- foresto 2y agoI think the way it was conceived is orthogonal to the way it is encoded or displayed.
- b3lvedere 2y agoI have seen thousands and thousands of those files and until now it never clicked that you could kinda rotate 180° that. Thank you!
- wengo314 2y agoi just thought it was "this" shortened to DOS standards.
- weinzierl 2y agoSame, and still makes the most sense to me. "Description In Zip" has the typical clunkiness of a backronym and the 180° theory suffers from the fact that filenames (as lloeki rightfully pointed out) were usually presented in all uppercase (even when lowercase was available) in that era. Phonetically shortening stuff on the other hand was almost a requirement in the scene, even if you had the space. EDIT: Thinking about it "identify this" is well in line with "read me".
- xnx 2y agoSingular of "deez"
- deleted 2y ago
- ale42 2y agoLol, when I was seeing them around as a teenager I was thinking to DIZ as "dizionario" in Italian (dictionary)... of course, had I thought a bit more, I could have figured out that it was probably not Italian.