Yoyodyne is the name of a number of companies, both fictional and real.

Literary

Yoyodyne was introduced as a fictional defense contractor in

Thomas Pynchon Thomas Ruggles Pynchon Jr. ( , ; born May 8, 1937) is an American novelist noted for his dense and complex novels. His fiction and non-fiction writings encompass a vast array of subject matter, genres and themes, including history, music, scie ...

's '' V.'' (1963) and featured prominently in his novel ''

The Crying of Lot 49 ''The Crying of Lot 49'' is a 1966 novel by American author Thomas Pynchon. The shortest of Pynchon's novels, the plot follows Oedipa Maas, a young Californian woman who begins to embrace a conspiracy theory as she possibly unearths a centuries-ol ...

'' (1966). Described in the latter book as "a giant of the aerospace industry," Yoyodyne was founded by

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposin ...

veteran Clayton "Bloody" Chiclitz. The company has a large manufacturing plant in the

fictional town A fictional city refers to a town, city or village that is invented for fictional stories and does not exist in real life, or which people believe to exist without definitive proof, such as Plato's account of Atlantis. Cultures have always had l ...

of San Narciso,

California California is a U.S. state, state in the Western United States, located along the West Coast of the United States, Pacific Coast. With nearly 39.2million residents across a total area of approximately , it is the List of states and territori ...

. The name is reminiscent of several real high-tech companies, including the

Gyrodyne Company of America Gyrodyne Company of America, Inc. is a real estate investment trust that owns, leases, and manages commercial properties along the Eastern Coast of the United States. Gyrodyne's headquarters are located in Saint James, New York, in Eastern Long ...

Teledyne Teledyne Technologies Incorporated is an American industrial conglomerate. It was founded in 1960, as Teledyne, Inc., by Henry Singleton and George Kozmetsky. From August 1996 to November 1999, Teledyne existed as part of the conglomerate Al ...

and

Teradyne Teradyne, Inc. is an American automatic test equipment (ATE) designer and manufacturer based in North Reading, Massachusetts. Teradyne's high-profile customers include Samsung, Qualcomm, Intel, Analog Devices, Texas Instruments and IBM. His ...

, all of which were founded a few years before Pynchon wrote ''The Crying of Lot 49'', and

Rocketdyne Rocketdyne was an American rocket engine design and production company headquartered in Canoga Park, California, Canoga Park, in the western San Fernando Valley of suburban Los Angeles, California, Los Angeles, in southern California. The Rocke ...

, an aerospace company that manufactured, among other things,

propulsion systems Propulsion is the generation of force by any combination of pushing or pulling to modify the translational motion of an object, which is typically a rigid body (or an articulated rigid body) but may also concern a fluid. The term is derived from ...

. The "

dyne The dyne (symbol: dyn; ) is a derived unit of force specified in the centimetre–gram–second (CGS) system of units, a predecessor of the modern SI. History The name dyne was first proposed as a CGS unit of force in 1873 by a Committee of ...

" is the standard unit of

force In physics, a force is an influence that can change the motion of an object. A force can cause an object with mass to change its velocity (e.g. moving from a state of rest), i.e., to accelerate. Force can also be described intuitively as a p ...

in the centimetre–gram–second (CGS) system of units, derived from the

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

word ''dynamis'', meaning "power" or "force".

Other fictional uses

* The 1984 film ''

The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension ''The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension'', often shortened to ''Buckaroo Banzai'', is a 1984 American science fiction film produced and directed by W. D. Richter and written by Earl Mac Rauch. It stars Peter Weller in the ...

'' used the name Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems for a defense contractor whose corporate offices feature the sign, "The future begins tomorrow". Yoyodyne is a front for a group of red Lectroid aliens, all with the first name

John John is a common English name and surname: * John (given name) * John (surname) John may also refer to: New Testament Works * Gospel of John, a title often shortened to John * First Epistle of John, often shortened to 1 John * Secon ...

, that landed in New Jersey in 1938, using the panic created by

Orson Welles George Orson Welles (May 6, 1915 – October 10, 1985) was an American actor, director, producer, and screenwriter, known for his innovative work in film, radio and theatre. He is considered to be among the greatest and most influential f ...

' ''

War of the Worlds ''The War of the Worlds'' is a science fiction novel by English author H. G. Wells, first serialised in 1897 by '' Pearson's Magazine'' in the UK and by ''Cosmopolitan'' magazine in the US. The novel's first appearance in hardcover was i ...

'' radio play as cover. * Numerous references in the ''

Star Trek ''Star Trek'' is an American science fiction media franchise created by Gene Roddenberry, which began with the eponymous 1960s television series and quickly became a worldwide pop-culture phenomenon. The franchise has expanded into vari ...

'' series, such as control panels and dedication plaques, indicate that parts of Federation starships were manufactured by Yoyodyne Propulsion Systems or YPS. Often, these notices are too small to be visible on a television screen, or can only be observed by freeze-framing. * Yoyodyne is a client of the law firm Wolfram & Hart on the television series ''

Angel In various theistic religious traditions an angel is a supernatural spiritual being who serves God. Abrahamic religions often depict angels as benevolent celestial intermediaries between God (or Heaven) and humanity. Other roles include ...

'' at the beginning in the 9th episode of the 5th season titled "Harm's Way". * The central bus station on the television series ''

The John Larroquette Show ''The John Larroquette Show'' is an American sitcom television series that aired on NBC from September 2, 1993, until October 30, 1996. Created by Don Reo, the show was a star vehicle for John Larroquette following his run as Dan Fielding on '' ...

'' was constructed by Yoyodyne, one of the many Pynchon references on the series. *

Tim Powers Timothy Thomas Powers (born February 29, 1952) is an American science fiction and fantasy fiction, fantasy author. Powers has won the World Fantasy Award twice for his critically acclaimed novels ''Last Call (novel), Last Call'' and ''Declare''. ...

' fantasy novel ''

Last Call In a bar, a last call (last orders) is an announcement made shortly before the bar closes for the night, informing patrons of their last chance to buy alcoholic beverages. There are various means to make the signal, like ringing a bell, flash ...

'' mentions Yoyodyne as a company in the

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the largest city in the state of California and the second most populous city in the United States after New York City, as well as one of the world' ...

area that "manufactures ... stuff". * In the German

miniature wargame Miniature wargaming is a form of wargaming in which military units are represented by miniature physical models on a model battlefield. The use of physical models to represent military units is in contrast to other tabletop wargames that use ...

''Spacelords'', House Yoyodyne is a faction with a culture almost identical to that of

feudal Feudalism, also known as the feudal system, was the combination of the legal, economic, military, cultural and political customs that flourished in Middle Ages, medieval Europe between the 9th and 15th centuries. Broadly defined, it was a wa ...

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

. * In

Clifford Stoll Clifford Paul "Cliff" Stoll (born June 4, 1950) is an American astronomer, author and teacher. He is best known for his investigation in 1986, while working as a systems administrator at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, that led to t ...

's ''

The Cuckoo's Egg ''The Cuckoo's Egg: Tracking a Spy Through the Maze of Computer Espionage'' is a 1989 book written by Clifford Stoll. It is his first-person account of the hunt for a computer hacker who broke into a computer at the Lawrence Berkeley National ...

'', a fictional tape drive manufactured by Yoyodyne Systems is mentioned in passing as an example ("a Foobar model 37 computer, and we're trying to hook up a Yoyodyne tape to it"). * A company named Yoyodyne is briefly mentioned in the HBO series ''

Silicon Valley Silicon Valley is a region in Northern California that serves as a global center for high technology and innovation. Located in the southern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, it corresponds roughly to the geographical areas San Mateo County ...

'' as a nod to the GNU General Public License. It appears to be a technology enterprise of some sort located in San Francisco. * In the novel ''

Hardwired Hardwire or hardwired may refer to: *Electrical wiring *Hardwired control unit, a part of a computer's central processing unit *In computer programming, a kludge to temporarily or quickly fix a problem *Wired communication In arts and entertainme ...

'' by

Walter Jon Williams Walter Jon Williams (born October 28, 1953) is an American writer, primarily of science fiction. Previously he wrote nautical adventure fiction under the name Jon Williams, in particular, ''Privateers and Gentlemen'' (1981–1984), a series of hi ...

, Yoyodyne is the parent company of the manufacturer of a fictional type of computer core made of liquid crystal. * The 1990 film '' The NeverEnding Story II: The Next Chapter'' used the name Yoyodyne Corp. on a spray-paint can label, wished for by the main character.

Technical uses

In June 1991 version 2 of the open-source license

GNU General Public License The GNU General Public License (GNU GPL or simply GPL) is a series of widely used free software licenses that guarantee end users the Four Freedoms (Free software), four freedoms to run, study, share, and modify the software. The license was th ...

used the fictional company name "Yoyodyne, Inc." as an example grantor of the license. Many technical works, such as Cricket Liu's ''

DNS The Domain Name System (DNS) is a hierarchical and distributed naming system for computers, services, and other resources in the Internet or other Internet Protocol (IP) networks. It associates various information with domain names assigned to ...

and

BIND BIND () is a suite of software for interacting with the Domain Name System (DNS). Its most prominent component, named (pronounced ''name-dee'': , short for ''name daemon''), performs both of the main DNS server roles, acting as an authoritative n ...

'' (

O'Reilly O'Reilly ( ga, Ó Raghallaigh) is a group of families, ultimately all of Irish Gaels, Gaelic origin, who were historically the kings of East Bréifne in what is today County Cavan. The clan were part of the Connachta's Uí Briúin Bréifne kin ...

), Per Cederqvist's ''Version Management with CVS'',

Jesse Vincent Jesse Vincent (born June 21, 1976) is a computer programmer and entrepreneur, best known for his work with the Perl programming language. He created the ticket-tracking system Request Tracker ("RT") and founded the company Best Practical Sol ...

's ''RT Essentials'' (O'Reilly), and the

version 2 use Yoyodyne as a company name in their examples. The Internet domain name www.yoyodyne.com was allocated by Internet software designer TGV Inc. as a "fake" domain name for use in DNS configuration examples. Yoyodyne was an

Internet The Internet (or internet) is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a '' network of networks'' that consists of private, pub ...

-based direct marketer, founded by

Seth Godin Seth W. Godin is an American author and former dot com business executive. Background After leaving Spinnaker in 1986, he used $20,000 in savings to found Seth Godin Productions, primarily a book packaging business, out of a studio apartment in ...

and later joined by

Mark Hurst Mark Hurst (born December 13, 1972) is a journalist, author, broadcaster, game designer, and Internet entrepreneur. He founded the GEL ("Good Experience Live") tech conference, and hosts a weekly technology-focused radio program, ''Techtonic'', o ...

, and acquired by

Yahoo! Yahoo! (, styled yahoo''!'' in its logo) is an American web services provider. It is headquartered in Sunnyvale, California and operated by the namesake company Yahoo Inc., which is 90% owned by investment funds managed by Apollo Global Man ...

on October 12, 1998. Godin took the name from the company in ''

''. A company named Yoyodyne LLC, based in

Morristown, New Jersey Morristown () is a town and the county seat of Morris County, in the U.S. state of New Jersey. ...

, is a retailer of aftermarket motorcycle parts, including self-branded clutch accessories.

Notes

{{Set index article Fictional companies Thomas Pynchon Yahoo! acquisitions Fictional elements introduced in 1963

Literary

Other fictional uses

Technical uses

See also

Notes