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twenex

twenex


  2  definitions  found 
 
  From  Jargon  File  (4.2.3,  23  NOV  2000)  [jargon]: 
 
  TWENEX  /twe'neks/  n.  The  TOPS-20  operating  system  by  {DEC}  -- 
  the  second  proprietary  OS  for  the  PDP-10  --  preferred  by  most  PDP-10 
  hackers  over  TOPS-10  (that  is  by  those  who  were  not  {{ITS}}  or  {{WAITS}} 
  partisans).  TOPS-20  began  in  1969  as  Bolt,  Beranek  &  Newman's  TENEX 
  operating  system  using  special  paging  hardware.  By  the  early  1970s, 
  almost  all  of  the  systems  on  the  ARPANET  ran  TENEX.  DEC  purchased  the 
  rights  to  TENEX  from  BBN  and  began  work  to  make  it  their  own  The  first 
  in-house  code  name  for  the  operating  system  was  VIROS  (VIRtual  memory 
  Operating  System);  when  customers  started  asking  questions,  the  name 
  was  changed  to  SNARK  so  DEC  could  truthfully  deny  that  there  was  any 
  project  called  VIROS.  When  the  name  SNARK  became  known  the  name  was 
  briefly  reversed  to  become  KRANS;  this  was  quickly  abandoned  when  someone 
  objected  that  `krans'  meant  `funeral  wreath'  in  Swedish  (though  some 
  Swedish  speakers  have  since  said  it  means  simply  `wreath';  this  part  of 
  the  story  may  be  apocryphal).  Ultimately  DEC  picked  TOPS-20  as  the  name 
  of  the  operating  system,  and  it  was  as  TOPS-20  that  it  was  marketed. 
  The  hacker  community,  mindful  of  its  origins,  quickly  dubbed  it  TWENEX 
  (a  contraction  of  `twenty  TENEX'),  even  though  by  this  point  very  little 
  of  the  original  TENEX  code  remained  (analogously  to  the  differences 
  between  AT&T  V6  Unix  and  BSD).  DEC  people  cringed  when  they  heard 
  "TWENEX",  but  the  term  caught  on  nevertheless  (the  written  abbreviation 
  `20x'  was  also  used).  TWENEX  was  successful  and  very  popular;  in  fact 
  there  was  a  period  in  the  early  1980s  when  it  commanded  as  fervent  a 
  culture  of  partisans  as  Unix  or  ITS  --  but  DEC's  decision  to  scrap  all 
  the  internal  rivals  to  the  VAX  architecture  and  its  relatively  stodgy  VMS 
  OS  killed  the  DEC-20  and  put  a  sad  end  to  TWENEX's  brief  day  in  the  sun. 
  DEC  attempted  to  convince  TOPS-20  users  to  convert  to  {VMS},  but  instead, 
  by  the  late  1980s,  most  of  the  TOPS-20  hackers  had  migrated  to  Unix. 
 
 
 
  From  The  Free  On-line  Dictionary  of  Computing  (13  Mar  01)  [foldoc]: 
 
  TWENEX 
 
    /twe'neks/  The  TOPS-20  {operating  system} 
  by  {DEC}  -  the  second  proprietary  OS  for  the  {PDP-10}  - 
  preferred  by  most  PDP-10  hackers  over  TOPS-10  (that  is  by 
  those  who  were  not  {ITS}  or  {WAITS}  partisans).  TOPS-20  began 
  in  1969  as  {Bolt,  Beranek  &  Newman}'s  {TENEX}  operating  system 
  using  special  paging  hardware.  By  the  early  1970s,  almost  all 
  of  the  systems  on  the  {ARPANET}  ran  TENEX.  DEC  purchased  the 
  rights  to  TENEX  from  BBN  and  began  work  to  make  it  their  own 
  The  first  in-house  code  name  for  the  operating  system  was 
  VIROS  (VIRtual  memory  Operating  System);  when  customers 
  started  asking  questions,  the  name  was  changed  to  SNARK  so  DEC 
  could  truthfully  deny  that  there  was  any  project  called  VIROS. 
  When  the  name  SNARK  became  known  the  name  was  briefly 
  reversed  to  become  KRANS;  this  was  quickly  abandoned  when 
  someone  objected  that  krans"  meant  "funeral  wreath"  in 
  Swedish  (though  some  Swedish  speakers  have  since  said  it  means 
  simply  "wreath";  this  part  of  the  story  may  be  apocryphal). 
 
  Ultimately  DEC  picked  TOPS-20  as  the  name  of  the  operating 
  system,  and  it  was  as  TOPS-20  that  it  was  marketed.  The 
  hacker  community,  mindful  of  its  origins,  quickly  dubbed  it 
  TWENEX  (a  contraction  of  "twenty  TENEX"),  even  though  by  this 
  point  very  little  of  the  original  TENEX  code  remained 
  (analogously  to  the  differences  between  AT&T  V6  Unix  and  BSD). 
  DEC  people  cringed  when  they  heard  "TWENEX",  but  the  term 
  caught  on  nevertheless  (the  written  abbreviation  "20x"  was 
  also  used).  TWENEX  was  successful  and  very  popular;  in  fact 
  there  was  a  period  in  the  early  1980s  when  it  commanded  as 
  fervent  a  culture  of  partisans  as  Unix  or  ITS  -  but  DEC's 
  decision  to  scrap  all  the  internal  rivals  to  the  VAX 
  architecture  and  its  relatively  stodgy  VMS  OS  killed  the 
  DEC-20  and  put  a  sad  end  to  TWENEX's  brief  day  in  the  sun. 
  DEC  attempted  to  convince  TOPS-20  users  to  convert  to  {VMS}, 
  but  instead,  by  the  late  1980s,  most  of  the  TOPS-20  hackers 
  had  migrated  to  Unix. 
 
  [{Jargon  File}] 
 
  (1995-04-01)