From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on inbox.vuxu.org X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-0.8 required=5.0 tests=DKIM_INVALID,DKIM_SIGNED, MAILING_LIST_MULTI,T_SCC_BODY_TEXT_LINE autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 Received: (qmail 7018 invoked from network); 12 Jun 2023 21:28:44 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (2600:3c01:e000:146::1) by inbox.vuxu.org with ESMTPUTF8; 12 Jun 2023 21:28:44 -0000 Received: from minnie.tuhs.org (localhost [IPv6:::1]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTP id CAA8240C0C; Tue, 13 Jun 2023 07:28:39 +1000 (AEST) Received: from sendmail.purelymail.com (sendmail.purelymail.com [34.202.193.197]) by minnie.tuhs.org (Postfix) with ESMTPS id 27CE840BFB for ; Tue, 13 Jun 2023 07:28:29 +1000 (AEST) DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha256; b=nF5QTxOrvDaDMY14YWlNpXXTi2yLpE/8uzNY1HwU4Yp9Rf1//cyQT92YzlQRJg6/Bq0sbNw3wVZcib1OyEnOajTT/ApatIYhsD0kZfCZr8e6MpAIg1r3mO3Pur1uDJVdxCLdOZrZnXC6jNiELE1HK5SowyvQiNQ22wBvxULriZaxLGr/++FKJXUv2OCCIaBrdWKlyrf9WPoQ7SNbGRcismKu/RGRhhcggVV1YhMEPN9eR0tYnac7mZuTvmWDcIDY3Q6uurO3yh+J8zL76ggRpkGsNP7gXLug58bGKtbXeS0QdpXUTsr+46XgBOTcXMnC4JiOKJG/rAcKOWwrrPwMDA==; s=purelymail3; d=pbrane.org; v=1; bh=8PtQGOEJpOnAjtqVn0bu0ngErphUOrXDClyD6dCs8Jk=; h=Received:From:To:Subject; DKIM-Signature: a=rsa-sha256; b=Kz5G/6XtpiJt2smoJEgtasDuhaCau3f5fXMMNQGFguWwXs14YI8nn8wiyD1rZPkNBIOogu4uTRnDo7ER0ulrE9gBe8nOjxasib3xkEP4goZmHYrfbkV9kHCyG+PsLQLujMBkwQwM9Cf6CmZNaoWWuoMRA/nrLdZu5r6B8pU3lnrmEo/SktRPF+3J2VSbQWIRq7FiUF+l/ONtRlZtqrg2tVQ/bmrnrX/kgXP/REvclt5r7KYaDXtklo8c3655ZabQt+fkRk6YX5TJmcaQ0/8SdWb2XLjj63ETrZBgbOuQ5mrg47015Y83Hv9eYY7PFJlNChpkd2chdk/UC7wRzR/a9Q==; s=purelymail3; d=purelymail.com; v=1; bh=8PtQGOEJpOnAjtqVn0bu0ngErphUOrXDClyD6dCs8Jk=; h=Feedback-ID:Received:From:To:Subject; Feedback-ID: 10987:2443:null:purelymail X-Pm-Original-To: tuhs@tuhs.org Received: by smtp.purelymail.com (Purelymail SMTP) with ESMTPSA id -1038007865 for (version=TLSv1.3 cipher=TLS_AES_256_GCM_SHA384); Mon, 12 Jun 2023 21:28:18 +0000 (UTC) Date: Mon, 12 Jun 2023 14:28:09 -0700 From: Anthony Martin To: The Eunuchs Hysterical Society Message-ID: References: <8DE09E23-5348-496B-B1CF-EDE9C47983B2@mac.com> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=utf-8 Content-Disposition: inline Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable In-Reply-To: X-MIME-Autoconverted: from 8bit to quoted-printable by Purelymail Message-ID-Hash: QRENIL6NOJBIMTNJOMAWYLXEFQG4ABN3 X-Message-ID-Hash: QRENIL6NOJBIMTNJOMAWYLXEFQG4ABN3 X-MailFrom: ality@pbrane.org X-Mailman-Rule-Misses: dmarc-mitigation; no-senders; approved; emergency; loop; banned-address; member-moderation; nonmember-moderation; administrivia; implicit-dest; max-recipients; max-size; news-moderation; no-subject; digests; suspicious-header X-Mailman-Version: 3.3.6b1 Precedence: list Subject: [TUHS] Re: crt0 -- what's in that name? List-Id: The Unix Heritage Society mailing list Archived-At: List-Archive: List-Help: List-Owner: List-Post: List-Subscribe: List-Unsubscribe: Chris Pinnock via TUHS once said: > > On 12 Jun 2023, at 21:22, Dan Cross wrote: > > I thought it was pretty well known that it stands for, "Block Started > > (by) Symbol=E2=80=9D? > > I wrote a paper on a.out a year or so ago and > concluded that I could not find an adequate answer > - so avoided the issue with a non-commital > footnote. Your paper says there are disagreements about what it stands for. What gave you that impression? >From https://www.tuhs.org/Usenet/comp.unix.wizards/1990-June/033811.html =09Dennis Ritchie says: =09Actually the acronym (in the sense we took it up; =09it may have other credible etymologies) is "Block =09Started by Symbol." It was a pseudo-op in FAP =09(Fortran Assembly [-er?] Program), an assembler =09for the IBM 704-709-7090-7094 machines. It defined =09its label and set aside space for a given number =09of words. There was another pseudo-op, BES, "Block =09Ended by Symbol" that did the same except that the =09label was defined by the last assigned word + 1. =09(On these machines Fortran arrays were stored =09backwards in storage and were 1-origin.) =09The usage is reasonably appropriate, because just =09as with standard Unix loaders, the space assigned =09didn't have to be punched literally into the =09object deck but was represented by a count =09somewhere. Cheers, Anthony