home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- Path: sparky!uunet!mcsun!goya!eonwe!jjsf
- From: jjsf@gmv.es (Julio Sanchez)
- Newsgroups: comp.os.linux
- Subject: Re: Does Linux use segmentation?
- Message-ID: <2498@eonwe.gmv.es>
- Date: 12 Nov 92 17:31:57 GMT
- References: <1dpov0INNqcu@agate.berkeley.edu> <1992Nov11.021246.3563@news.acns.nwu.edu> <1drk1tINN7vt@agate.berkeley.edu>
- Sender: news@gmv.es
- Organization: Grupo de Mecanica del Vuelo, S.A. (GMV), Madrid, Spain
- Lines: 55
- Nntp-Posting-Host: bilore
-
- In article <1drk1tINN7vt@agate.berkeley.edu> curtis@cs.berkeley.edu (Curtis Yarvin) writes:
- >
- >Block Started by Symbol!
- >
- >It was an old System/360 instruction for clearing memory.
- >
-
- Close, very close.
-
- I am not in the splitting hairs business but it was not an instruction
- but rather an assembler directive. I won't say anything else and let
- Dennis Ritchie explain it:
-
- |From: tmatimar@empress.com (Ted M A Timar)
- |Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions,comp.unix.shell,news.answers
- |Subject: Frequently Asked Questions about Unix (1/7) [Biweekly posting]
- |Message-ID: <unix-faq/part1_721029617@athena.mit.edu>
- |Date: 6 Nov 92 06:00:49 GMT
- |Approved: news-answers-request@MIT.Edu
- |
- |Archive-name: unix-faq/part1
- |Version: $Id: part1,v 2.0 92/10/20 12:06:59 tmatimar Exp $
- |
- |[Much deleted]
- |
- |1.3) What does {some strange unix command name} stand for?
- |
- |[Much deleted]
- |
- | bss = "Block Started by Symbol"
- |
- | Dennis Ritchie says:
- |
- | Actually the acronym (in the sense we took it up; it may
- | have other credible etymologies) is "Block Started by
- | Symbol." It was a pseudo-op in FAP (Fortran Assembly [-er?]
- | Program), an assembler for the IBM 704-709-7090-7094
- | machines. It defined its label and set aside space for a
- | given number of words. There was another pseudo-op, BES,
- | "Block Ended by Symbol" that did the same except that the
- | label was defined by the last assigned word + 1. (On these
- | machines Fortran arrays were stored backwards in storage
- | and were 1-origin.)
- |
- | The usage is reasonably appropriate, because just as with
- | standard Unix loaders, the space assigned didn't have to be
- | punched literally into the object deck but was represented
- | by a count somewhere.
-
- Julio
- --
- Julio Sanchez, GMV SA, Isaac Newton 11, PTM Tres Cantos, E-28760 Madrid, Spain
- Ph. +34 1 807 21 85 | jsanchez@gmv.es | Traveller, there is no
- Fax +34 1 807 21 99 | jsanchez%gmv.es@Spain.EU.net | path; paths are made by
- Telex 48487 GMEV E | Julio_Sanchez_GMV@EuroKom.ie | walking (A. Machado)
-