21 Mar
2018
21 Mar
'18
1:10 a.m.
On Mar 20, 2018, at 11:46 AM, Clem Cole <clemc(a)ccc.com> wrote:
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 2:24 PM, Bakul Shah <bakul(a)bitblocks.com> wrote:
On Tue, 20 Mar 2018 14:04:38 -0400 Dan Cross <crossd(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dan Cross writes:
This origin must've been better known 30+ years back because I
remembered this as well. To check I first looked at the Wikipedia
entry for Maxwell's demons (I learned new facts but also confused
myself as I couldn't see the connection).
As to where Maxwell got his demons, see
https://archive.org/stream/lifescientificwo00knotuoft#page/212/mode/2up
and page 214 as well:
Maxwell constructed the following Catechism:
"Concerning demons.
"1. Who gave them this name? Thomson
"2. What were they by nature? Very small BUT lively beings incapable of
doing work but also able to open and shut valves which move without
friction or inertia.
etc.
On Tue, Mar 20, 2018 at 1:56 PM, George Michaelson <ggm(a)algebras.org> wrote:
I think daemon/demon came from printers demon, which is carved into
From http://ei.cs.vt.edu/~history/Daemon.html
Fernando J. Corbato: ... Our use of the word daemon (@
Project MAC in 1963) was inspired by the Maxwell's daemon of
physics and thermodynamics. (My background is Physics.)
Maxwell's daemon was an imaginary agent which helped sort
molecules of different speeds and worked tirelessly in the
background. We fancifully began to use the word daemon to
describe background processes which worked tirelessly to
perform system chores.
Right -- that is what I was under the impression from where the term came for computer
use. Although, I was also under the impression that Maxwell had taken the term from
ideas from some his Cambridge colleagues that were working on human thought and described
the ideas of these daemons running around in your head supporting things like vision,
hearing and your other senses. The later was formalized I believe years later by Oliver
Suthridge (IIRC my Cog Psych of many years ago) - into the something like the Pandemonium
model of cognition. the government printing office in Brisbane. the
printers demon is the
one which stuffed up letters in the tray, to make printers tear their
hair out. Did I say tray? I meant case, upper case, the one above,
with the big letters, and lower case, the case with the little
letters. oh dear. really? is that why they are cases?
While this story (and the others I trimmed for brevity) is (are) great,
"daemon" is actually from the Greek, I believe: an intermediary between
humans (users) and the gods (the kernel). i.e. I think the term was used first in Cognition,
then to Physics and finally to Computers.
As for Paul's comment about the daemons. Yes, Kirk McKusick who actually drew the
original BSD daemon with purple sneakers, was wearing the infamous blue tee with said logo
out walking on the street, as one someone else in the party (maybe Sam Leffler) sporting a
10 anniversary USENIX shirt in San Antonio many years ago, which has the daemons shown top
of a PDP-11 with pipes, the null device, et al. He has quite a tale of the experience.
BSD's daemon is much cuter than that damned nemesis of Batman :-)