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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>Chapter 3. Revision History</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="pt01.html" title="Part I. Introduction"/><link rel="previous" href="distinctions.html" title="Chapter 2. Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak"/><link rel="next" href="construction.html" title="Chapter 4. Jargon Construction"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">Chapter 3. Revision History</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="distinctions.html">Prev</a> </td><th width="60%" align="center">Part I. Introduction</th><td width="20%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="construction.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><div class="chapter" lang="en"><div class="titlepage"><div><div><h2 class="title"><a id="revision-history"/>Chapter 3. Revision History</h2></div></div><div/></div><p>The original Jargon File was a collection of hacker jargon from
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technical cultures including the MIT AI Lab, the Stanford AI lab (SAIL), and
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others of the old ARPANET AI/LISP/PDP-10 communities including Bolt, Beranek
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and Newman (BBN), Carnegie-Mellon University (CMU), and Worcester Polytechnic
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Institute (WPI).</p><p>The Jargon File (hereafter referred to as ‘jargon-1’ or
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‘the File’) was begun by Raphael Finkel at Stanford in 1975. From
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this time until the plug was finally pulled on the SAIL computer in 1991, the
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File was named AIWORD.RF[UP,DOC] there. Some terms in it date back
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considerably earlier (<a href="F/frob.html"><i class="glossterm">frob</i></a> and some senses of
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<a href="M/moby.html"><i class="glossterm">moby</i></a>, for instance, go back to the Tech Model Railroad
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Club at MIT and are believed to date at least back to the early 1960s). The
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revisions of jargon-1 were all unnumbered and may be collectively considered
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‘Version 1’.</p><p>In 1976, Mark Crispin, having seen an announcement about the File on the
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SAIL computer, FTPed a copy of the File to MIT. He
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noticed that it was hardly restricted to ‘AI words’ and so stored
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the file on his directory as AI:MRC;SAIL JARGON.</p><p>The file was quickly renamed JARGON > (the ‘>’ caused
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versioning under ITS) as a flurry of enhancements were made by Mark Crispin
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and Guy L. Steele Jr. Unfortunately, amidst all this activity, nobody
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thought of correcting the term ‘jargon’ to ‘slang’
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until the compendium had already become widely known as the Jargon
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File.</p><p>Raphael Finkel dropped out of active participation shortly thereafter
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and Don Woods became the SAIL contact for the File (which was subsequently
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kept in duplicate at SAIL and MIT, with periodic resynchronizations).</p><p>The File expanded by fits and starts until about 1983; Richard Stallman
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was prominent among the contributors, adding many MIT and ITS-related
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coinages.</p><p>In Spring 1981, a hacker named Charles Spurgeon got a large chunk of the
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File published in Stewart Brand's <i class="citetitle">CoEvolution Quarterly</i>
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(issue 29, pages 26—35) with illustrations by Phil Wadler and Guy Steele
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(including a couple of the Crunchly cartoons). This appears to have been the
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File's first paper publication.</p><p>A late version of jargon-1, expanded with commentary for the mass
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market, was edited by Guy Steele into a book published in 1983 as
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<i class="citetitle">The Hacker's Dictionary</i> (Harper & Row CN 1082, ISBN
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0-06-091082-8). The other jargon-1 editors (Raphael Finkel, Don Woods, and
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Mark Crispin) contributed to this revision, as did Richard M. Stallman and
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Geoff Goodfellow. This book (now out of print) is hereafter referred to as
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‘Steele-1983’ and those six as the Steele-1983 coauthors.</p><p>Shortly after the publication of Steele-1983, the File effectively
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stopped growing and changing. Originally, this was due to a desire to freeze
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the file temporarily to facilitate the production of Steele-1983, but external
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conditions caused the ‘temporary’ freeze to become
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permanent.</p><p>The AI Lab culture had been hit hard in the late 1970s by funding cuts
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and the resulting administrative decision to use vendor-supported hardware and
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software instead of homebrew whenever possible. At MIT, most AI work had
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turned to dedicated LISP Machines. At the same time, the commercialization of
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AI technology lured some of the AI Lab's best and brightest away to startups
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along the Route 128 strip in Massachusetts and out West in Silicon Valley.
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The startups built LISP machines for MIT; the central MIT-AI computer became a
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<a href="T/TWENEX.html"><i class="glossterm">TWENEX</i></a> system rather than a host for the AI hackers'
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beloved <a href="I/ITS.html"><i class="glossterm">ITS</i></a>. </p><p>The Stanford AI Lab had effectively ceased to exist by 1980, although
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the SAIL computer continued as a Computer Science Department resource until
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1991. Stanford became a major <a href="T/TWENEX.html"><i class="glossterm">TWENEX</i></a> site, at one
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point operating more than a dozen TOPS-20 systems; but by the mid-1980s most
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of the interesting software work was being done on the emerging BSD Unix
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standard. </p><p>In April 1983, the PDP-10-centered cultures that had nourished the File
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were dealt a death-blow by the cancellation of the Jupiter project at Digital
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Equipment Corporation. The File's compilers, already dispersed, moved on to
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other things. Steele-1983 was partly a monument to what its authors thought
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was a dying tradition; no one involved realized at the time just how wide its
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influence was to be.</p><p>By the mid-1980s the File's content was dated, but the legend that had
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grown up around it never quite died out. The book, and softcopies obtained
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off the ARPANET, circulated even in cultures far removed from MIT and
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Stanford; the content exerted a strong and continuing influence on hacker
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language and humor. Even as the advent of the microcomputer and other trends
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fueled a tremendous expansion of hackerdom, the File (and related materials
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such as the <a href="koans.html" title="Some AI Koans">Some AI Koans</a> in Appendix A) came to
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be seen as a sort of sacred epic, a hacker-culture Matter of Britain
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chronicling the heroic exploits of the Knights of the Lab. The pace of change
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in hackerdom at large accelerated tremendously — but the Jargon File,
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having passed from living document to icon, remained essentially untouched for
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seven years.</p><p>This revision contains nearly the entire text of a late version of
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jargon-1 (a few obsolete PDP-10-related entries were dropped after careful
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consultation with the editors of Steele-1983). It merges in about 80% of the
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Steele-1983 text, omitting some framing material and a very few entries
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introduced in Steele-1983 that are now also obsolete.</p><p>This new version casts a wider net than the old Jargon File; its aim is
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to cover not just AI or PDP-10 hacker culture but all the technical computing
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cultures wherein the true hacker-nature is manifested. More than half of the
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entries now derive from <a href="U/Usenet.html"><i class="glossterm">Usenet</i></a> and represent jargon now
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current in the C and Unix communities, but special efforts have been made to
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collect jargon from other cultures including IBM PC programmers, Amiga fans,
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Mac enthusiasts, and even the IBM mainframe world.</p><p>Eric S. Raymond <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:esr@thyrsus.com">esr@thyrsus.com</a>></tt> maintains the new File
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with assistance from Guy L. Steele Jr. <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:gls@think.com">gls@think.com</a>></tt>; these are
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the persons primarily reflected in the File's editorial ‘we’,
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though we take pleasure in acknowledging the special contribution of the other
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coauthors of Steele-1983. Please email all additions, corrections, and
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correspondence relating to the Jargon File to Eric.</p><p>(Warning: other email addresses and URLs appear in this file
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<span class="emphasis"><em>but are not guaranteed to be correct</em></span> after date of
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publication. <span class="emphasis"><em>Don't</em></span> email us if an attempt to reach
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someone bounces — we have no magic way of checking addresses or looking
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up people. If a web reference goes stale, try a Google or Alta Vista search
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for relevant phrases.</p><p>Please try to review a recent copy of the on-line document before
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submitting entries; it is available on the Web. It will often contain new
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material not recorded in the latest paper snapshot that could save you some
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typing. It also includes some submission guidelines not reproduced
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here.</p><p>The 2.9.6 version became the main text of <i class="citetitle">The New Hacker's
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Dictionary</i>, by Eric Raymond (ed.), MIT Press 1991, ISBN
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0-262-68069-6. </p><p>The 3.0.0 version was published in August 1993 as the second edition of
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<i class="citetitle">The New Hacker's Dictionary</i>, again from MIT Press (ISBN
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0-262-18154-1).</p><p>The 4.0.0 version was published in September 1996 as the third edition
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of <i class="citetitle">The New Hacker's Dictionary</i> from MIT Press (ISBN
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0-262-68092-0).</p><p>The maintainers are committed to updating the on-line version of the
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Jargon File through and beyond paper publication, and will continue to make it
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available to archives and public-access sites as a trust of the hacker
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community.</p><p>Here is a chronology of major revisions:</p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col/><col/><col/><col/><col/><col/><col/></colgroup><thead><tr><th>Version</th><th>Date</th><th>Lines</th><th>Words</th><th>Characters</th><th>Entries</th><th>Comments</th></tr></thead><tbody><tr><td>2.1.1</td><td>Jun 12 1990</td><td>5485</td><td>42842</td><td>278958</td><td>790</td><td><p>The Jargon File comes alive again after a seven-year hiatus.
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Reorganization and massive additions were by Eric S. Raymond, approved by Guy
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Steele. Many items of UNIX, C, USENET, and microcomputer-based jargon were
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added at that time. </p></td></tr><tr><td>2.1.5</td><td>Nov 28 1990</td><td>6028</td><td>46946</td><td>307510</td><td>866</td><td><p>Changes and additions by ESR in response to numerous USENET submissions
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and comment from the First Edition co-authors. The Bibliography (Appendix C)
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was also appended.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.2.1</td><td>Dec 15 1990</td><td>9394</td><td>75954</td><td>490501</td><td>1046</td><td><p>Most of the contents of the 1983 paper edition edited by Guy Steele was
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merged in. Many more USENET submissions added, including the International
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Style and the material on Commonwealth Hackish.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.3.1</td><td>Jan 03 1991</td><td>10728</td><td>85070</td><td>558261</td><td>1138</td><td><p>The great format change — case is no longer smashed in lexicon
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keys and cross-references. A very few entries from jargon-1 which were
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basically straight techspeak were deleted; this enabled the rest of Appendix B
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(created in 2.1.1) to be merged back into main text and the appendix replaced
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with the Portrait of J. Random Hacker. More USENET submissions were
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added.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.4.1</td><td>Jan 14 1991</td><td>12362</td><td>97819</td><td>642899</td><td>1239</td><td><p>The Story of Mel and many more USENET submissions merged in. More
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material on hackish writing habits added. Numerous typo fixes.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.6.1</td><td>Feb 12 1991</td><td>15011</td><td>118277</td><td>774942</td><td>1484</td><td><p>Second great format change; no more <> around headwords or
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references. Merged in results of serious copy-editing passes by Guy Steele,
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Mark Brader. Still more entries added.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.7.1</td><td>Mar 01 1991</td><td>16087</td><td>126885</td><td>831872</td><td>1533</td><td><p>New section on slang/jargon/techspeak added. Results of Guy's second
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edit pass merged in.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.8.1</td><td>Mar 22 1991</td><td>17154</td><td>135647</td><td>888333</td><td>1602</td><td><p>Material from the TMRC Dictionary and MRC's editing pass merged
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in.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.9.6</td><td>Aug 16 1991</td><td>18952</td><td>148629</td><td>975551</td><td>1702</td><td><p>Corresponds to reproduction copy for book.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.9.8</td><td>Jan 01 1992</td><td>19509</td><td>153108</td><td>1006023</td><td>1760</td><td><p>First public release since the book, including over fifty new entries
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and numerous corrections/additions to old ones. Packaged with version 1.1 of
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vh(1) hypertext reader.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.9.9</td><td>Apr 01 1992</td><td>20298</td><td>159651</td><td>1048909</td><td>1821</td><td><p>Folded in XEROX PARC lexicon.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.9.10</td><td>Jul 01 1992</td><td>21349</td><td>168330</td><td>1106991</td><td>1891</td><td><p>lots of new historical material.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.9.11</td><td>Jan 01 1993</td><td>21725</td><td>171169</td><td>1125880</td><td>1922</td><td><p>Lots of new historical material.</p></td></tr><tr><td>2.9.12</td><td>May 10 1993</td><td>22238</td><td>175114</td><td>1152467</td><td>1946</td><td><p>A few new entries & changes, marginal MUD/IRC slang and some
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borderline techspeak removed, all in preparation for 2nd Edition of
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TNHD.</p></td></tr><tr><td>3.0.0</td><td>Jul 27 1993</td><td>22548</td><td>177520</td><td>1169372</td><td>1961</td><td><p>Manuscript freeze for 2nd edition of TNHD.</p></td></tr><tr><td>3.1.0</td><td>Oct 15 1994</td><td>23197</td><td>181001</td><td>1193818</td><td>1990</td><td><p>Interim release to test WWW conversion.</p></td></tr><tr><td>3.2.0</td><td>Mar 15 1995</td><td>23822</td><td>185961</td><td>1226358</td><td>2031</td><td><p>Spring 1995 update.</p></td></tr><tr><td>3.3.0</td><td>Jan 20 1996</td><td>24055</td><td>187957</td><td>1239604</td><td>2045</td><td><p>Winter 1996 update.</p></td></tr><tr><td>3.3.1</td><td>Jan 25 1996</td><td>24147</td><td>188728</td><td>1244554</td><td>2050</td><td><p>Copy-corrected improvement on 3.3.0 shipped to MIT Press as a step
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towards TNHD III.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.0.0</td><td>Jul 25 1996</td><td>24801</td><td>193697</td><td>1281402</td><td>2067</td><td><p>The actual TNHD III version after copy-edit</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.1.0</td><td>8 Apr 1999</td><td>25777</td><td>206825</td><td>1359992</td><td>2217</td><td><p>The Jargon File rides again after three years.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.2.0</td><td>31 Jan 2000</td><td>26598</td><td>214639</td><td>1412243</td><td>2267</td><td><p>Fix processing of URLs.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.3.0</td><td>30 Apr 2001</td><td>27805</td><td>224978</td><td>1480215</td><td>2319</td><td><p>Special edition in honor of the first implementation of RFC 1149. Also
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cleaned up a number of obsolete entries.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.0</td><td>10 May 2003</td><td>32004</td><td>230012</td><td>1707139</td><td>2290</td><td><p>XML-Docbook format conversion. Serious pruning of old slang,
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nearly 100 entries failed the Google test and were removed.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.1</td><td>13 May 2003</td><td>37157</td><td>234687</td><td>1618716</td><td>2290</td><td><p>XML-Docbook format fixes.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.2</td><td>22 May 2003</td><td>32629</td><td>227852</td><td>1555125</td><td>2290</td><td><p>Fix filename collisions and other small problems.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.3</td><td>15 Jul 2003</td><td>37363</td><td>235135</td><td>1629667</td><td>2293</td><td><p>Fix some stylesheet problems leading to missing links.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.4</td><td>14 Aug 2003</td><td>37392</td><td>235271</td><td>1630579</td><td>2295</td><td><p>Corrected build machinery; we can make RPMS now.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.5</td><td> 4 Oct 2003</td><td>37482</td><td>235858</td><td>1634767</td><td>2299</td><td><p>Minor updates. Four new entries and a better original-bug
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picture.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.6</td><td>25 Oct 2003</td><td>37560</td><td>236406</td><td>1638454</td><td>2302</td><td><p>Added glider illustration. Amended FUD entry pursuent to SCO's
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attempt to abuse it.</p></td></tr><tr><td>4.4.7</td><td>29 Dec 2003</td><td>37666</td><td>237206</td><td>1643609</td><td>2307</td><td><p>Winter 2003 update.</p></td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>Version numbering: Version numbers should be read as
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major.minor.revision. Major version 1 is reserved for the ‘old’
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(ITS) Jargon File, jargon-1. Major version 2 encompasses revisions by ESR
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(Eric S. Raymond) with assistance from GLS (Guy L. Steele, Jr.) leading up to
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and including the second paper edition. From now on, major version number
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N.00 will probably correspond to the Nth paper edition. Usually later
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versions will either completely supersede or incorporate earlier versions, so
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there is generally no point in keeping old versions around.</p><p>Our thanks to the coauthors of Steele-1983 for oversight and assistance,
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and to the hundreds of Usenetters (too many to name here) who contributed
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entries and encouragement. More thanks go to several of the old-timers on the
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Usenet group <tt class="systemitem">alt.folklore.computers</tt>,
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who contributed much useful commentary and many corrections and valuable
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historical perspective: Joseph M. Newcomer
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<tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu">jn11+@andrew.cmu.edu</a>></tt>, Bernie Cosell
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<tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:cosell@bbn.com">cosell@bbn.com</a>></tt>, Earl Boebert <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:boebert@SCTC.com">boebert@SCTC.com</a>></tt>,
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and Joe Morris <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org">jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org</a>></tt>.</p><p>We were fortunate enough to have the aid of some accomplished linguists.
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David Stampe <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:stampe@hawaii.edu">stampe@hawaii.edu</a>></tt> and Charles Hoequist
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<tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:hoequist@bnr.ca">hoequist@bnr.ca</a>></tt> contributed valuable criticism; Joe Keane
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<tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:jgk@osc.osc.com">jgk@osc.osc.com</a>></tt> helped us improve the pronunciation
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guides.</p><p>A few bits of this text quote previous works. We are indebted to Brian
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A. LaMacchia <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:bal@zurich.ai.mit.edu">bal@zurich.ai.mit.edu</a>></tt> for obtaining permission for
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us to use material from the <i class="citetitle">TMRC Dictionary</i>; also, Don
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Libes <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:libes@cme.nist.gov">libes@cme.nist.gov</a>></tt> contributed some appropriate material
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from his excellent book <i class="citetitle">Life With UNIX</i>. We thank Per
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Lindberg <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:per@front.se">per@front.se</a>></tt>, author of the remarkable
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Swedish-language 'zine <i class="citetitle">Hackerbladet</i>, for bringing
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<i class="citetitle">FOO!</i> comics to our attention and smuggling one of the
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IBM hacker underground's own baby jargon files out to us. Thanks also to
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Maarten Litmaath for generously allowing the inclusion of the ASCII
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pronunciation guide he formerly maintained. And our gratitude to Marc Weiser
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of XEROX PARC <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:Marc_Weiser.PARC@xerox.com">Marc_Weiser.PARC@xerox.com</a>></tt> for securing us
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permission to quote from PARC's own jargon lexicon and shipping us a
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copy.</p><p>It is a particular pleasure to acknowledge the major contributions of
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Mark Brader and Steve Summit <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:scs@eskimo.com">scs@eskimo.com</a>></tt> to the File and
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Dictionary; they have read and reread many drafts, checked facts, caught
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typos, submitted an amazing number of thoughtful comments, and done yeoman
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service in catching typos and minor usage bobbles. Their rare combination of
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enthusiasm, persistence, wide-ranging technical knowledge, and precisionism in
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matters of language has been of invaluable help. Indeed, the sustained volume
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and quality of Mr. Brader's input over a decade and several different editions
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has only allowed him to escape co-editor credit by the slimmest of
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margins.</p><p>Finally, George V. Reilly <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:georgere@microsoft.com">georgere@microsoft.com</a>></tt> helped
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with TeX arcana and painstakingly proofread some 2.7 and 2.8 versions, and
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Eric Tiedemann <tt class="email"><<a href="mailto:est@thyrsus.com">est@thyrsus.com</a>></tt> contributed sage advice
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throughout on rhetoric, amphigory, and philosophunculism.</p></div><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="distinctions.html">Prev</a> </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="pt01.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"> <a accesskey="n" href="construction.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">Chapter 2. Of Slang, Jargon, and Techspeak </td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"> Chapter 4. Jargon Construction</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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