Re: What's "gno"?

["Michael J. Mahon" <mjmahon@aol.com>]

Peter Watson wrote:
> "Paul Schlyter" <pausch@saaf.se> wrote in message 
> news:e1kuk7$2tde$1@merope.saaf.se...
>
> > > > GNO is a UNIX-like software package for the Apple IIgs, which runs on 
> > > > top
> > > > of the native operating system, GS/OS.
> >
> > Interesting --- but what's the difference between GNO and Anix?  OK, GNO 
> > runs
> > on top of GS/OS while Anix ran on top of Apple DOS 3.3.  Any other 
> > differences?
>
>
> Since nobody appears to have mentioned it...
>
> The name GNO was a play on GNU from the Unix world. GNU is a recursive 
> acronym which stands for "GNU's Not Unix". So GNO stands for "GNO's Not 
> Orca" (the Orca shell arguably being the major development shell for the 
> IIgs until that point).

And the whole "X is not Y" naming conceit started with students at MIT's
AI Lab, and was applied to several programs.  (BTW, the ritual "foo"
and "bar" identifiers [from FUBAR of course] also originated there,
as did "hack" and much else. ;-)

-michael

Music synthesis for 8-bit Apple II's!
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