THE ORIGIN OF IT TERMS

SAFEBYTES SOFTWARE

One of the easiest ways to prove that we live in a digital age is by looking at the number of words in the IT World that have spilled over into “real life” and are being used by just about everyone.

Although this is the case today, it used to be quite the opposite a few years or decades ago. What happened to those words that already had a meaning, but were given an entirely new one when put into tech-related context?

Believe it or not, there are plenty of these around, and they have become so common nowadays that we don’t even notice that they really mean something else. The list below explains the origins of some of the most popular computer terms that are currently being used.

Curious in finding out how cookies, spam, and java found their way from our kitchens to our computers? Keep on reading for more details.

COOKIES

EVERYBODY LOVES COOKIES. WHETHER THEY ARE MADE WITH PEANUT BUTTER, CHOCOLATE CHIPS, OR JUST ABOUT ANYTHING ELSE, PEOPLE CAN’T GET ENOUGH OF THEM. THEIR DIGITAL COUNTERPARTS, HOWEVER, WHILE NOT AS UNIVERSALLY ADORED, ARE STILL VERY IMPORTANT, BECAUSE THEY ARE DESIGNED TO STORE IMPORTANT BITS OF USER INFORMATION, SUCH AS PASSWORDS AND USERNAMES, AMONG OTHER THINGS, AND TRANSFER THEM BETWEEN A WEBSITE AND A BROWSER.

SO WHAT DOES THAT HAVE TO DO WITH COOKIES? WELL, WHEN COOKIES WERE FIRST INTRODUCED, PROGRAMMERS WERE OBSESSED WITH THE WAY IT WOULD HIDE IMPORTANT BITS OF DATA INSIDE AN ACTUAL CHINESE FORTUNE COOKIE, WHICH, AS WE KNOW, HIDES A FORTUNE INSIDE IT.

JAVA

JAVA IS ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR GENERAL-PURPOSE, OBJECT-ORIENTED PROGRAMMING LANGUAGES TODAY. IT’S NOTED FOR ITS WIDE VARIETY OF APPLICATIONS, AND THE NUMBER OF DIFFERENT PLATFORMS IT SUPPORTS. JAVA IS USED TO CREATE INTERACTIVE CONTENT, SUCH AS GAMES OR VIRTUAL TOURS, AS WELL AS TO DEVELOP APPS. IT HAS EVEN FOUND ITS WAY INTO THE PROPRIETARY SOFTWARE OF SMART DEVICES, SUCH AS TVS. IT IS A KNOWN FACT THAT JAVA WASN’T THE FIRST NAME SUGGESTED BY ITS AUTHORS. ITS ORIGINAL NAME WAS OAK. IT WAS NAMED THAT WAY AFTER A TREE THAT GREW OUTSIDE THE OFFICE BUILDING OF ITS CREATORS. AFTER THAT, IT WAS NAMED GREEN, UNTIL THEY FINALLY SETTLED ON JAVA. ALLEGEDLY BECAUSE JAMES GOSLING, MIKE SHERIDAN, PATRICK NAUGHTON, WHO CAME UP WITH IT, WERE ALL FANS OF JAVA COFFEE, WHICH THEY DRANK IN COPIOUS AMOUNTS.

BUGTODAY, WE USE THE WORD BUG TO DESCRIBE AN ERROR OR MALFUNCTION INSIDE THE SYSTEM OR SOFTWARE, AND WHILE THERE ARE REPORTS OF THOMAS EDISON USING THE WORD IN SUCH CONTEXT, HE IS NOT THE ONE CREDITED FOR IT.

SUCH HONOR BELONGS TO GRACE HOPPER, WHO OPERATED THE LEGENDARY HARVARD MARK II COMPUTER IN THE LATE SEVENTIES.

HOPPER, WHO WAS ONE OF THE PROGRAMMING PIONEERS, NOTICED THAT THE ENTIRE COMPUTER HAD STOPPED OPERATING, DUE TO A MOTH GETTING STUCK IN ONE OF ITS RELAYS. REMOVING THE MOTH WAS REFERRED TO AS DEBUGGING BY HOPPER, AND THE TERM BUG BECAME THE GENERALLY ACCEPTED TERM FOR AN ERROR.

THE MOTH, ALONG WITH THE ORIGINAL NOTE, IS STILL ON DISPLAY TODAY AT THE SMITHSONIAN MUSEUM.

FIREWALL

IN REAL LIFE, A FIREWALL IS A STRUCTURE DESIGN TO PREVENT THE FIRE FROM SPREADING. DURING MEDIEVAL TIMES, FIREWALLS WERE BUILT IN THE SHAPE OF MASSIVE, THICK WALLS OR TOWERS, WHICH WERE CAPABLE OF CONTAINING THE FIRE AND STOPPING IT FROM BURNING DOWN THE ENTIRE STRUCTURE.

ON ANOTHER NOTE, IN THE AUTOMOTIVE INDUSTRY, A FIREWALL IS A METAL SHEET THAT SEPARATES THE ENGINE COMPARTMENT AND PASSENGER AREA.

A DIGITAL FIREWALL DOES A VERY SIMILAR THING ON OUR COMPUTERS. STOPPING VARIOUS THREATS AND PREVENTING UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS TO OUR MACHINES. OF COURSE, INSTEAD OF FIRES, FIREWALLS ON OUR COMPUTERS ARE THERE TO PROTECT THEM AGAINST HACKERS, VIRUSES, TROJANS, AND WORMS.

IT’S YOUR PC’S FIRST LINE OF DEFENSE.

BLUETOOTHFOR ALL YOU HISTORY BUFFS OUT THERE, BLUETOOTH WAS A NICKNAME GIVEN TO KING HARALD GORMSSON, WHO SUCCEEDED IN RULING THE ENTIRE SCANDINAVIA. THE ORIGIN OF HIS NICKNAME, HOWEVER, IS LESS THAN FLATTERING. HIS TEETH WERE SO HORRIBLE AND ROTTEN, THAT THEY APPEARED TO BE BLUE, AND THAT’S WHEN THE NAME BLUETOOTH WAS CREATED. HIS ABILITY TO UNITE STATES CAUGHT THE ATTENTION OF JIM KARDACH, WHO SUGGESTED THE NAME TO INTEL, WHERE HE WORKED AT, NOKIA, ERICSSON, AND IBM, COMPANIES WHICH WERE JOINTLY DEVELOPING A BRAND NEW WIRELESS COMMUNICATION STANDARD. WHILE THE NAME WASN’T A FAVORITE, IT WAS KEPT AS A PLACEHOLDER UNTIL THEY COULD THINK OF ONE GOOD ENOUGH TO REPLACE IT. THEY AGREED ON THE NAME PAN (PERSONAL AREA NETWORK), WHICH WAS ELIMINATED SHORTLY BEFORE THE RELEASE DUE TO SEO PROBLEMS. BLUETOOTH WAS INTRODUCED YET AGAIN AND WITH THE LACK OF A BETTER OPTION AVAILABLE, THE PUBLIC EMBRACED IT RIGHT AWAY.

SPAM

ALTHOUGH IT MAY APPEAR THAT CANNED MEAT AND UNWANTED MAIL AND ADS DON’T HAVE VERY MUCH IN COMMON, THERE IS A CONNECTION THERE. AND THE CONNECTION IS: MONTHY PYTHON.

ONE OF THEIR SKETCHES REPRESENTS A RESTAURANT WHOSE MENU OFFERS NOTHING ELSE BUT SPAM TO THEIR VISITORS WHO CAN’T STOP PRAISING IT, WHILE DROWNING OUT ALL OTHER NON-SPAM CONVERSATIONS.

IT IS BOTH HILARIOUS AND IRRITATING, JUST LIKE SPAM.

VIRUSTHE CONNECTION BETWEEN AN ACTUAL BIOLOGICAL VIRUS AND A COMPUTER VIRUS IS IMMEDIATELY APPARENT, BECAUSE BOTH USE THEIR OWN CODE TO INFECT THE HOST SYSTEM AND USE IT AS A MEANS TO REPLICATE ITSELF.THE VERY FIRST TIME THE WORD VIRUS WAS MENTIONED AS A COMPUTER TERM WAS BACK IN 1984, IN A PAPER WRITTEN BY FRED COHEN, TITLED “EXPERIMENTS WITH COMPUTER VIRUSES”. SOME DISPUTE THIS CLAIM BY POINTING OUT THE USE OF THE WORD BY SCI-FI WRITER DAVID GERROLD A DECADE EARLIER. IN ONE OF HIS RESEARCHES, A PROGRAM NAMED VIRUS INFECTS A COMPUTER, ONLY TO BE DESTROYED BY ANOTHER PROGRAM CALLED ANTIBODY. IT WAS JUST A SIMPLE COINCIDENCE. AND THERE YOU HAVE IT. EVEN THOUGH TECHNOLOGY MIMICS NATURE AND THE WORLD AROUND US ALL THE TIME, SOMETIMES IT USES THE SAME TERMS TO DESCRIBE ITEMS WHICH ARE ANALOGOUS TO OUR REAL-WORLD COUNTERPARTS. WE HOPE WE HAVE SHED SOME LIGHT ON THE ORIGINS OF SOME OF THOSE TERMS.