"foo" origin

[Jonathan I. Kamens]

In article <19100003 at hpfijdw.HP.COM> jdw at hpfijdw.HP.COM (Jeff Wood) writes:
>In my lengthy career in Computer Science at the University,
>many professors used the acronym "foo".  None of which knew
>its origins.  Examples of code were called "foo.c", functions
>were called "int foo ()".  Do any of you gurus from way
>back know what this stands for????

  It doesn't take "gurus from way back" to know what this stands for,
since I certainly cannot claim to be one of those :-)

  From the hacker's dictionary:

FOO 1. [from Yiddish "feh" or the Anglo-Saxon "fooey!"] interj. Term
   of disgust.  2. [from FUBAR (Fucked Up Beyond All Recognition),
   from WWII, often seen as FOOBAR] Name used for temporary programs,
   or samples of three-letter names.  Other similar words are BAR, BAZ
   (Stanford corruption of BAR), and rarely RAG.  These have been used
   in Pogo as well.  3. Used very generally as a sample name for
   absolutely anything.  The old `Smokey Stover' comic strips often
   included the word FOO, in particular on license plates of cars.
   MOBY FOO: See MOBY.

MOBY [seems to have been in use among model railroad fans years ago.
   Entered the world of AI with the Fabritek 256K moby memory of
   MIT-AI.  Derived from Melville's "Moby Dick" (some say from "Moby
   Pickle").] 1. adj. Large, immense, or complex.  "A moby frob."  2.
   n. The maximum address space of a machine, hence 3. n. 256K words,
   the size of a PDP-10 moby.  (The maximum address space means the
   maximum normally addressable space, as opposed to the amount of
   physical memory a machine can have.  Thus the MIT PDP-10s each have
   two mobies, usually referred to as the "low moby" (0-777777) and
   "high moby" (1000000-1777777), or as "moby 0" and "moby 1".  MIT-AI
   has four mobies of address space: moby 2 is the PDP-6 memory, and
   moby 3 the PDP-11 interface.)  In this sense "moby" is often used
   as a generic unit of either address space (18. bits' worth) or of
   memory (about a megabyte, or 9/8 megabyte (if one accounts for
   difference between 32.- and 36.-bit words), or 5/4 megacharacters).
   4. A title of address (never of third-person reference), usually
   used to show admiration, respect, and/or friendliness to a
   competent hacker.  "So, moby Knight, how's the CONS machine doing?"
   5. adj. In backgammon, doubles on the dice, as in "moby sixes",
   "moby ones", etc.
   MOBY FOO, MOBY WIN, MOBY LOSS: standard emphatic forms.
   FOBY MOO: a spoonerism due to Greenblatt.

  Has this question made it into the c.u.q commonly asked questions
yet (I'd check, but this month's is expired here at MIT)?  How about
the global news.announce.newusers commonly asked questions?  If not,
should it?

Jonathan Kamens			              USnail:
MIT Project Athena				11 Ashford Terrace
jik at Athena.MIT.EDU				Allston, MA  02134
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