“Computer Slang”

Guy L. Steele, Raphael Finkel, Donald Woods, and Mark Crispin

“Computer Slang”

In CoEvolution Quarterly 29:26–35

1981

Computer enthusiasts have long constituted a subculture, but nobody thought to record their distinctive language until Raphael Finkel, a doctoral student, began collecting it in a text file nicknamed “The Jargon File.” As he shared it with friends over ARPANET, it bounced from lab to lab, growing and mutating. No early versions survive, but in 1981 CoEvolution Quarterly, a spinoff from The Whole Earth Catalog, published selections. A much-expanded version appeared in 1983 as The Hacker’s Dictionary. 

Ex coll. Jack Lynch. HHD no. 121