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Path: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au!newshost.carno.net.au!harbinger.cc.monash.edu.au!news.mel.connect.com.au!munnari.OZ.AU!news.ecn.uoknor.edu!solace!news.stealth.net!www.nntp.primenet.com!nntp.primenet.com!uwm.edu!uwvax!tricia!newsmaster From: Jay.Jaeger@msn.fullfeed.com (Jay R. Jaeger) Newsgroups: comp.unix.misc,comp.unix.bsd.misc,alt.folklore.computers Subject: Re: On the Naming of UNIX Things Date: Fri, 15 Nov 1996 00:19:19 GMT Organization: The Computer Collection Lines: 29 Message-ID: <328cb5ad.2528560@news.msn.fullfeed.com> References: <55vhpf$q3o@mail1.wg.waii.com> <E0tAts.BAr.0.queen@torfree.net> <56g0mm$gpf@web.nmti.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: cubeppp.msn.fullfeed.com Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Newsreader: Forte Agent .99f/32.299 Xref: euryale.cc.adfa.oz.au comp.unix.misc:26420 comp.unix.bsd.misc:1499 alt.folklore.computers:124596 peter@nmti.com (Peter da Silva) wrote: >In article <E0tAts.BAr.0.queen@torfree.net>, >William J. Hayes <ab915@torfree.net> wrote: >> grep: >> "Generic Regular Expression Printer" > > >So it was called "grpep", then shortened to "grep" after Bill Gates made >a hilarious typo in the Xenix-86 version at a trade show. The actual details >were hushed up, and they changed the command to make sure it never happened >again. > Baloney. grep existed in Unix 6th edition, cir. 1976, long before there was a PC. I'd have to check, but I'd bet it was even in the 5th edition, a year before. Or was your explanation intended to be flame bait? It is, of course, as others here have pointed out, really derived from the "ed" command sequence: g/<regular expression/p, i.e. Globally search for a Regular Expression, and Print. Sigh, these folks that started on PC's need some real history of computing education ;-) --- Jay R. Jaeger The Computer Collection Jay.Jaeger@msn.fullfeed.com visit http://www.msn.fullfeed.com/~cube