Return to BSD News archive
Xref: sserve comp.unix.bsd:14158 comp.unix.misc:12664 comp.unix.questions:50594 Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!msuinfo!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!europa.eng.gtefsd.com!gatech!udel!news2.sprintlink.net!news.sprintlink.net!news.world.net!usenet From: darren@inherent.com (Inherent Network Admin Center) Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd,comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.questions Subject: SUMMARY: Why the term "daemon" in the UNIX OS Date: 16 Jun 1994 17:08:10 GMT Organization: Internetworks, Inc. Lines: 53 Distribution: USA Message-ID: <2tq0tr$33p@pdx1.world.net> Reply-To: darren@inherent.com NNTP-Posting-Host: 198.145.74.254 Thanks again to all who responded to my question concerning the origin of the term daemon in the UNIX OS. I'm sorry the summary posting is a little delayed, but such is business life. It seems that most people agree that the term daemon was assigned for the enigma--a representation of an all knowing entitity effecting a resolution without anyone knowing. This of course makes sense in design since items that are supposed to work often pick up names that are a little mystical. There were also a number of ideas for acronyms. Many of which were humourous, the best being: Die And Execute MONitor (stemming from the same principle of Terminate and Stay Resident) from Chirs Perrott (cperrott@retina.mpce.mq.edu.au) The most legitimate: Disk And Execution MONitor from Nick Hillard (nick@quay.ie) There were also the ideals that the name origniated through examples of previous operating system designs. The actual term daemon was officially used by Lynn Wheeler (lynn@bli.com) for cp/67 code, and she beleives that it may have originated from ctss and multix. Other lineages suggested were Cp-V, Sigma-IX, RSTS, and PrimeOS where similar terms were used. All in all it seems there is legitimacy to the term of daemon where the origin would appear to lie in the history of similar processes and the ideal that has been placed around them. Through the ages there have always needed to be basic structures that monitor background hardware processess and now software as well. It seems that a lot of trust must be given into the beleif that they will always work. This of course generates all sorts of doubt in the human psyche since once we no longer have direct control over an operation we tend to grow a little skeptical and attribute the action to some magical process. Thanks again to everyone! See you in the funny pages. -- Darren McKee - Technical Staff | darren@inherent.com Network Administration Center | Tel.: 503-224-6751 Inherent Technologies, Inc. | Fax: 503-224-8872 2140 SW Jefferson St. Suite 130 | sysadmin@inherent.com Portland, Oregon USA 97201 |