On 09/11/2017 07:22 PM, Chris Elmquist wrote: > Lincoln had ETAOIN on his personalized MN license plate (on the very well > worn Ford full size van he drove) and another guy had SHRDLU on his plates. > > I was told that the name came from this string which could be found in > printed works and that people had always seen it but just read past it > because it didn't fit or make sense. I believe it was Neil's youngest son > Brian who offered up this name but I'm not remembering why anymore. > > There was also a Lincoln story that ETA was like The Eta, a Spanish terrorist > group and all of us at ETA were going to terrorize the supercomputer industry.
I'd say that the second was apocryphal. It was around 1983 when Neil dropped by to talk to us that he told the ETAOIN SHRDLU source of the ETA name and his son's part in the naming. Hey, that was almost 35 years ago. I have trouble remembering where I put my glasses (sometimes they're on my head...) --Chuck
