foonly
2 definitions found
foonly - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :
Foonly
1. The PDP-10 successor that was to have been built by the
Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
along with a new operating system. The intention
was to leapfrog from the old DEC time-sharing system SAIL
was then running to a new generation, bypassing TENEX which at
that time was the ARPANET standard. ARPA funding for
both the Super Foonly and the new operating system was cut in
1974. Most of the design team went to DEC and contributed
greatly to the design of the PDP-10 model KL10.
2. The name of the company formed by Dave Poole, one of the
principal Super Foonly designers, and one of hackerdom's more
colourful personalities. Many people remember the parrot
which sat on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion.
3. Any of the machines built by Poole's company. The first
was the F-1 (a.k.a. Super Foonly), which was the
computational engine used to create the graphics in the movie
"TRON". The F-1 was the fastest PDP-10 ever built, but only
one was ever made. The effort drained Foonly of its financial
resources, and the company turned toward building smaller,
slower, and much less expensive machines. Unfortunately,
these ran not the popular TOPS-20 but a TENEX variant called
Foonex; this seriously limited their market. Also, the
machines shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering
prototypes requiring individual attention from more than
usually competent site personnel, and thus had significant
reliability problems. Poole's legendary temper and
unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not help matters. By
the time of the Jupiter project cancellation in 1983, Foonly's
proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the Mars, and
the company never quite recovered. See the Mars entry for
the continuation and moral of this story.
[Jargon File]
foonly - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :
Foonly
n.
1. The PDP-10 successor that was to have been built by the Super
Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
along with a new operating system. (The name itself came from FOO
NLI,
an error message emitted by a PDP-10 assembler at SAIL meaning "FOO
is
Not a Legal Identifier". The intention was to leapfrog from the old
DEC timesharing system SAIL was then running to a new generation,
bypassing TENEX which at that time was the ARPANET standard. ARPA
funding for both the Super Foonly and the new operating system was
cut
in 1974. Most of the design team went to DEC and contributed greatly
to the design of the PDP-10 model KL10.
2. The name of the company formed by Dave Poole, one of the principal
Super Foonly designers, and one of hackerdom's more colorful
personalities. Many people remember the parrot which sat on Poole's
shoulder and was a regular companion.
3. Any of the machines built by Poole's company. The first was the
F-1
(a.k.a. Super Foonly), which was the computational engine used to
create the graphics in the movie TRON. The F-1 was the fastest PDP-10
ever built, but only one was ever made. The effort drained Foonly of
its financial resources, and the company turned towards building
smaller, slower, and much less expensive machines. Unfortunately,
these ran not the popular TOPS-20 but a TENEX variant called
Foonex;
this seriously limited their market. Also, the machines shipped were
actually wire-wrapped engineering prototypes requiring individual
attention from more than usually competent site personnel, and thus
had significant reliability problems. Poole's legendary temper and
unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not help matters. By the
time
DEC's "Jupiter Project" followon to the PDP-10 was cancelled in 1983,
Foonly's proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the Mars,
and
the company never quite recovered. See the Mars entry for the
continuation and moral of this story.
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