RE: Charlie and COMMON -- MIDRANGE-L

I had heard of asterisk being called "splat" and "twinkle" and the exclamation point being called "bang" as well as "shriek"

Alan Shore
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From: MIDRANGE-L [mailto:midrange-l-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Vern Hamberg via MIDRANGE-L
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 11:49 AM
To: Midrange Systems Technical Discussion <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Cc: Vern Hamberg <vhamberg@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Subject: [EXTERNAL] Re: Charlie and COMMON

Splat has been in use a long time, so far as I can tell. A sentence in the "asterisk" wiki page says, "In Commodore (and related) filesystems, an asterisk appearing next to a filename in a directory listing denotes an improperly closed file, commonly called a "splat file"." This goes back to 1977, at least. I believe I heard that the name comes from the sound (and how it looks) when a bug smashes into the inside of the monitor screen. Exclamation points are "bang", so shell scripts in bash start with hash-band - #! - TMI coming - check this out for fun! https://ss64.com/bash/syntax-pronounce.html<https://ss64.com/bash/syntax-pronounce.html>

Cheers
Vern

----- Original Message -----
From: "Jim Oberholtzer" <midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:midrangel@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
To: "Midrange Systems Technical Discussion" <midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:midrange-l@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>>
Sent: Monday, May 16, 2022 8:54:26 AM
Subject: Re: Charlie and COMMON

I've used that "splat" for so many years I cannot remember. Until now I
was completely unaware of its origin. Nice to know.

Charlie had just left the COMMON board when I first joined it. It was a
pleasure watching him lend his managerial and people skills when
contentious items of discussion came up, and at that time there were
several. Charlie's technical prowess aside, he was a great man.

--
Jim Oberholtzer
Chief Technical Architect
Agile Technology Architects

On Mon, May 16, 2022 at 8:04 AM Larry "DrFranken" Bolhuis <
midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx<mailto:midrange@xxxxxxxxxxxx>> wrote:

I too learned 'SPLAT' from Charlie. At one point in 1988 we hired a
developer from India who had no middle name. We used everyone's initials
for changes in programs and required 3 initials to keep things neat and
in line. So hers became G*P which as you can imagine was pronounced 'Gee
Splat Pee' :-) She is known by that even today over 30 years later.

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