On Mon, 5 Apr 2010, Tony Duell wrote:
Nor have I. I wonder if this is an IBM .vs. the rest
of the world thing.
IBM had their own terms for a lot of things (PEL rather than Pixel, All
Points Addressable mode rather htan Bitmaped mode, Planar board rather
than motehrboard, Module rather than integrated circuit, and so on).
A typically unreliable source, my uncle, was working for IBM throughout
much of that time.
He claimed that IBM's refusal to use the term "Motherboard" was directly
due to repeated use by the Black Panthers of "MotherBLEEP" and "Up against
the wall, motherBLEEP!" in speeches at Merritt College (particularly
Eldridge Cleaver's "Part of the solution; part of the problem" speech in
1968).
My uncle was, of course, very upset when I began teaching at Merritt
College in the 80's, even though the college had moved in 1972, and was no
longer the location of political activity.
--
Grumpy Ol' Fred cisin at
xenosoft.com