From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
From: chneukirchen@gmail.com (Christian Neukirchen)
Date: Thu, 11 Sep 2014 23:24:32 +0200
Subject: [TUHS] Etymology of bc(1)
Message-ID: <877g19g8a7.fsf@gmail.com>

Hello,

on de.comp.os.unix.shell there is a recent thread about bc(1) which
turned into a discussion about why it is called "bc".  dc(1) is pretty
clearly "desk calculator" as by the man page, but the etymology of bc
seems to be unclear.

I've heard the following plausible theories:

- basic calculator (Wikipedia)
- beauty calculator (some people apparently dislike RPN)
- better calculator
- bench calculator (Wikipedia)
- b is the letter d mirrored (RPN vs algebraic)
- bundle calculator (the word "bundle" appears 97 times in bc.y of V6)

...but nobody had a really conclusive argument.  Perhaps someone here
remembers the real story?

Thanks,
-- 
Christian Neukirchen  <chneukirchen at gmail.com>  http://chneukirchen.org