Hi,
On Tue, 19 Jan 1999, Brent Williams wrote:
>My apologies if this is a waste of anyone's time.
>
>I am getting tired of responding "I don't know" when a user asks me
>where the term "daemon" came from. Does anyone know the answer to this?
>
>thanks in advance
Well, the term was first used by the people who made CTSS, they in turn
derived their notion of the kind of programmes the term referred to from the ITS
people's 'dragon'.
After CTSS of course came Unix (well VMS, then Unix) and the term kind of
stuck. Since then it has been rationalised as an acronyme for Disk And
Execution MONitor, but this merely shows the modern computer professional's
desire for everything to make sense.
In the past computer people KNEW that they were grappling with dark and primal
forces of nature, hence the rather apt name for the 'main' programmes.
;) Some of the above is true.
Jonathan Kop,
UEN Systems Administration.
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
