caorach
Well-Known Member
Biff.
There is a computer operating system called unix that, generally, ran on mainframe type computers. It tended to have short names for commands and they were often conceived by people who, certainly these days, might be a bit alternative. Unix was written somewhere about 1974ish by Kernighan and Ritchie among others - K&R wrote the c programming language and then much of unix was coded in c. So, for example, unix has a command called "pine" and upon investigation it is found that "pine" stands for "Pine Is Not Elm" and, of course, Elm is another unix command that was an early electronic mail application.
Now you have to remember that this was the very early days of computing and things such as email plus the people involved were a bit alternative, pretty much it was all a big joke and a bit of entertainment. There were various "add-ons" to the email system on the unix system and one was called "biff" and it alerted you when you had a new email. Everyone tried to work out what "biff" stood for and K&R wouldn't tell. Then one day someone was in the apartment of one of them, I don't know which one, and the dog in another apartment started barking like crazy and the owner was shouting "Biff, Biff, shut up, stop barking at the postman" and the penny dropped. Biff was a dog that barked at the postman, and an early computer application that alerted you to new email.
There is a computer operating system called unix that, generally, ran on mainframe type computers. It tended to have short names for commands and they were often conceived by people who, certainly these days, might be a bit alternative. Unix was written somewhere about 1974ish by Kernighan and Ritchie among others - K&R wrote the c programming language and then much of unix was coded in c. So, for example, unix has a command called "pine" and upon investigation it is found that "pine" stands for "Pine Is Not Elm" and, of course, Elm is another unix command that was an early electronic mail application.
Now you have to remember that this was the very early days of computing and things such as email plus the people involved were a bit alternative, pretty much it was all a big joke and a bit of entertainment. There were various "add-ons" to the email system on the unix system and one was called "biff" and it alerted you when you had a new email. Everyone tried to work out what "biff" stood for and K&R wouldn't tell. Then one day someone was in the apartment of one of them, I don't know which one, and the dog in another apartment started barking like crazy and the owner was shouting "Biff, Biff, shut up, stop barking at the postman" and the penny dropped. Biff was a dog that barked at the postman, and an early computer application that alerted you to new email.
