religion of CHI
/ki:/ [Case Western Reserve University] Yet another hackish parody religion (see
also Church of the SubGenius, Discordianism). In the mid-70s, the canonical
"Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were taught in ALGOL, and student
exercises were punched on cards and run on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew
operating system named CHI. The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual:
whenever the worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would
recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS, ARCTAN." The
last five words were the first five functions in the appropriate chapter of the
ALGOL manual; note the special pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than
the more common /ahbz/ and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's
arrival was considered harmful.
[Jargon File]
Nearby terms:
Reliability, Availability, Serviceability « reliable
communication « Reliable Data Protocol « religion
of CHI
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