glossary
A glossary (from , ''glossa''; language, speech, wording), also known as a vocabulary or clavis, is an alphabetical list of Term (language), terms in a particular domain of knowledge with the definitions for those terms. Traditionally, a gloss ...
and
usage dictionary
A language-for-specific-purposes dictionary (LSP dictionary) is a reference work which defines the specialised vocabulary used by experts within a particular field, for example, architecture. The discipline that deals with these dictionaries is s ...
of
slang
A slang is a vocabulary (words, phrases, and linguistic usages) of an informal register, common in everyday conversation but avoided in formal writing and speech. It also often refers to the language exclusively used by the members of pa ...
used by
computer programmers
A programmer, computer programmer or coder is an author of computer source code someone with skill in computer programming.
The professional titles ''software developer'' and ''software engineer'' are used for jobs that require a progr ...
. The original Jargon File was a collection of terms from technical cultures such as the
MIT AI Lab
Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) is a research institute at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) formed by the 2003 merger of the Laboratory for Computer Science (LCS) and the Artificial Intelligence Lab ...
, the
Stanford AI Lab
Stanford University has many centers and institutes dedicated to the study of various specific topics. These centers and institutes may be within a department, within a school but across departments, an independent laboratory, institute or center ...
(SAIL) and others of the old
ARPANET
The Advanced Research Projects Agency Network (ARPANET) was the first wide-area packet-switched network with distributed control and one of the first computer networks to implement the TCP/IP protocol suite. Both technologies became the tec ...
LISP
Lisp (historically LISP, an abbreviation of "list processing") is a family of programming languages with a long history and a distinctive, fully parenthesized Polish notation#Explanation, prefix notation.
Originally specified in the late 1950s, ...
/
PDP-10
Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC)'s PDP-10, later marketed as the DECsystem-10, is a mainframe computer family manufactured beginning in 1966 and discontinued in 1983. 1970s models and beyond were marketed under the DECsystem-10 name, especi ...
communities, including
Bolt, Beranek and Newman
Raytheon BBN (originally Bolt, Beranek and Newman, Inc.) is an American research and development company based in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
In 1966, the Franklin Institute awarded the firm the Frank P. Brown Medal, in 1999 BBN received the ...
(BBN),
Carnegie Mellon University
Carnegie Mellon University (CMU) is a private research university in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, United States. The institution was established in 1900 by Andrew Carnegie as the Carnegie Technical Schools. In 1912, it became the Carnegie Institu ...
, and
Worcester Polytechnic Institute
The Worcester Polytechnic Institute (WPI) is a Private university, private research university in Worcester, Massachusetts, United States. Founded in 1865, WPI was one of the United States' first engineering and technology universities and now h ...
. It was published in paperback form in 1983 as ''The Hacker's Dictionary'' (edited by
Guy Steele
Guy Lewis Steele Jr. (; born October 2, 1954) is an American computer scientist who has played an important role in designing and documenting several computer programming languages and technical standards.
Biography
Steele was born in Missouri ...
) and revised in 1991 as ''The New Hacker's Dictionary'' (ed.
Eric S. Raymond
Eric Steven Raymond (born December 4, 1957), often referred to as ESR, is an American software developer, open-source software advocate, and author of the 1997 essay and 1999 book ''The Cathedral and the Bazaar''. He wrote a guidebook for the R ...
; third edition published 1996).
The concept of the file began with the Tech Model Railroad Club (TMRC) that came out of early
TX-0
The TX-0, for ''Transistorized Experimental computer zero'', but affectionately referred to as tixo (pronounced "tix oh"), was an early fully transistorized computer and contained a then-huge 64Kilo-, K of 18-bit words of magnetic-core memory. C ...
and
PDP-1
The PDP-1 (Programmed Data Processor-1) is the first computer in Digital Equipment Corporation's PDP series and was first produced in 1959. It is known for being the most important computer in the creation of hacker culture at the Massachusetts ...
hackers in the 1950s, where the term ''
hacker
A hacker is a person skilled in information technology who achieves goals and solves problems by non-standard means. The term has become associated in popular culture with a security hackersomeone with knowledge of bug (computing), bugs or exp ...
'' emerged and the ethic, philosophies and some of the nomenclature emerged.
1975 to 1983
The Jargon File (referred to here as "Jargon-1" or "the File") was made by Raphael Finkel at
Stanford
Leland Stanford Junior University, commonly referred to as Stanford University, is a private research university in Stanford, California, United States. It was founded in 1885 by railroad magnate Leland Stanford (the eighth governor of and th ...
in 1975. From that time until the plug was finally pulled on the
SAIL
A sail is a tensile structure, which is made from fabric or other membrane materials, that uses wind power to propel sailing craft, including sailing ships, sailboats, windsurfers, ice boats, and even sail-powered land vehicles. Sails may b ...
computer in 1991, the File was named "AIWORD.RF P,DOC (" P,DOC was a system directory for "User Program DOCumentation" on the
WAITS
WAITS is a heavily modified variant of Digital Equipment Corporation's Monitor operating system (later renamed to, and better known as, " TOPS-10") for the PDP-6 and PDP-10 mainframe computers, used at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Labor ...