Under IBSYS for the IBM 7094 printed and punched output was often said to be 'spooled' to tape for subsequent printing and punching under the control of an IBM 1401.
'Backronym' is, I suppose, inevitable as a nonce term; but I should be sorry to see such a barbarism come into wide use. The standard distinction is that between analytic and synthetic acronyms. This distinction is sometimes hard to make and sometimes not. I learned of The US Department of Energy's Innovative and Novel Computational Impact on Theory and Experiment (INCITE) initiative from an IBM press release last year; and it is clear beyond argument that INCITE is a synthetic acronym, but the case under discussion is less clear: it is probably a mixed one. John Gilmore, Ashland, MA 01721 - USA ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
