The Lost Art Of Catchy Acronyms

[Sheep64]

Since the 1940s, we've had catchy acronyms such as SONAR, RADAR, LASER, MASER, SAGE and SABRE. Even the world's most famous RNG was called ERNIE. This tradition continued with mini-computers and early micro-computer systems, such as RCA1802 and 6502. In particular, MOS Technology developed RIOT and VIA. Atari developed ANTIC and POKEY. Commodore developed VIC, SID and TED. (Continuations have developed VICKY and VERA.) However, it is a niche mostly practised on 6502. Seriously, name five acronyms from Zilog, Intel or Motorola.

There are a large number of standard names which aren't acronyms. Cryptography is bizarrely informal with Alice, Bob, Carol, Eve, Mallory, Trent and others. Acorn named I/O pages Fred, Jim and Sheila, although, disappointingly Fred isn't page $FD. Commodore's 16 bit peripherals were called Agnus, Denise and Paula. (The optional Akiko performed binary matrix transpose.)

We've had the recursive acronyms of GNU, MINT and COOL. It is possible to be a SCSI HIPPI, write JOVIAL or study the difference between WIMP and MACHO. However, we live in a age of TWAIN [Technology Without A Interesting Name] where we have WQXGA and HDMI. In lieu of a marketing department, someone gets a cat to walk across a keyboard. It is unacceptably CRUD. To help rectify this situation, I have some suggested names of proper acronyms. The best ones fall into a pattern in which should be:

• Overtly pompous.
• Self-depreciating.
• Have a jaunty frivolity.
• Be an obvious backronym.

TWAIN scores quite well on multiple criteria. Here are some suggestions for better acronyms.

I'm very disappointed wit the unoriginality of VIC, VICKY and VERA. I think that it is fairly certain that Video is common to all of them. More original names include:

• CLAIRE [Character Level Array Indexed Raster Engine].
• GILES [Graphics Interface with Loads of Extra Sprites].
• A good name for a composite video interface may be DAVE [Downsampled Analog Video Extension].
• Naming a blitter BOB [Builtin Object Blitter] would be boring but ANTLER [Alan's Natural Texture Low Energy Rendering] would be more unique.
• For accompanying audio, try THOMAS [Timer Hack Outputs Messy Audio Signal].

For other hardware:

• Bank switching? Call it ALBERT [Ancillary Logic Bodge Extends Random Twiddling].
• UART? Call it BETTY [Basic Expansion and TeleTYpe].
• BECKY [Bus Expansion, Clock and KeYboard]. (Yes, this is derived from POKEY.)
• MUSA [Multi-Use Serial Adapter].

For software:

• We've all seen IMPACT [Interactive Media Project All Cobbled Together].
• Likewise, we've all seen SHANTI [Surprisingly Haphazard Abstraction Negates Tidy Interface].
• What we prefer is FRUITFUL [Fast Reacting User Interface Tailored From Unadventurous Language].
• Don't use REPL. Use SHEEP [Shell Hosted Expression Evaluation Processor] or HORSE [Holistic Orthogonal Retrieval/Simplification Engine]. (The latter was influenced by JARVIS.)
• We've had COFF, IFF, ELF and others but I don't think we've had HOLLI [Hierarchical Object Link/Load Interface].

I'll finish with a frivolous backronym which was easy after spending an afternoon in the mood:

• GARTHWILSON [Great American Retro Teacher Helps With Insanely Light Systems, Obsolete or Not].

Anyhow, I hope this cheers someone on April Fools Day.

[BillG]

Motorola had PIA and ACIA.

I thought WIMP was Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer to go with WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get

My favorite has to be PCMCIA - People Cannot Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms

[speculatrix]

BillG wrote:

I thought WIMP was Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer to go with WYSIWYG - What You See Is What You Get

My favourite was WYGIWYG.

Back in the DOS and home computer days, software like word processors gave only the faintest idea of what the document would look like when printed. To known for sure, you had to... well, print it out. Hence: What You Get Is What You Get.

[Sheep64]

BillG on Fri 1 Apr 2022 wrote:

I thought WIMP was Windows, Icons, Menus and Pointer

In addition to WIMP and MACHO there is (possibly) ORC [Odd Radio Circles]. Given it was published on Fri 1 Apr 2022, it might be an April Fool. If so, it is an April Fool which references the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society.

Acronyms may be ambiguous. I thought that it was off-topic but mildy amusing for the Japan Amusement Machine and Marketing Association to publish an article about the extraction of a light-bulb from an inadvisable location. I subsequently discovered that it was from the Journal of the American Medical Association.

I finish with another 6502 acronym. Someone named their address decode GAL as GRETA.

[Agumander]

This has awakened me to a grave deficiency in my GameTank project.

My system components have names like:

• SVMCC (Simplified Video Memory Copy Controller)
• CCVSG (Color Composite Video Signal Generator
• GAC (GameTank Audio Coprocessor)

I should change these to catchier names.

[BigDumbDinosaur]

Then there are my POC computers and, no, POC doesn't mean “piece of cr*p.”

[jmthompson]

I'm a big fan of catchy acronyms, so much so that I've probably wasted a little too much time just trying to figure out what to call something before I even design it. For me the project isn't truly retro if it doesn't have at least one custom logic chip with a clever name.

A couple examples:

TIVI - Tiny VGA Interface, the TinyFPGA-based CRTC I designed for my defunct COLE-2 project.
JIGL - JRC Integrated Glue Logic, the CPLD used in JRC-1

[Sheep64]

On Sat 2 Apr 2022, it occurred to me that I never provided an acronym for SHEEPSCII [Sharded Hieroglyphs Enable Emergent Presentation System, Create Irregular Interchange].

Agumander: Don't feel deficient in any manner. It is vastly preferable to have working hardware rather than catchily named vaporware, especially when it is easy to name things. I've devised some acronyms for you. Some of them have a fish theme because fish can sometimes be found in a tank. Indeed, there is an old joke: There are two fish in a tank. One says to the other "Do you know how to drive this thing?" Worryingly, someone thought that would be a good idea for a research project.

In approximate order that they occurred to me:

• 2D blitter could be called ROXY [Replicates Objects in X and Y].
• Composite output can be called PHIL [Phase Handling Interval Latch].
• SMUDGE [Shared Memory User Defined Graphic Engine].
• MUCCI [Multi-Use Composite Color Interface]. Or perhaps DUCCI for Dual User.
• TuCSON [TUring Complete Sound Or Noise].
• TALBOT [Tank Audio Link/Blitter Object Transfer] is more original than ALICE [Audio Line Integrated Circuit Extension].
• PERCH [Planar Expansion Retro-Computing Hardware]. In addition to being a fish/tank reference, it has a double meaning if one circuit is perched on another.
• Any library, firmware or diagnostics may be SALMon [System Auto-Loading MONitor].

I'm reserving MAGPIE [Multiplexed Audio Generates Polyphonic Instrument Experience] because it would be a minor travesty to make a bird reference which is not 24 bit.

[Sheep64]

• OSCAR: Open System for CommunicAtion in Realtime. The protocol for AOL's AIM and ICQ.
• SUSAN: SNES, UART, SP/DIF And Network.