List of Computer Term Etymologies - S

S

• Samba — a free implementation of Microsoft's networking protocol.

The name samba comes from inserting two vowels into the name of the standard protocol that Microsoft Windows network file system use, called SMB (Server Message Block). The author searched a dictionary using grep for words containing S M and B in that order; the only matches were Samba and Salmonberry.

• shareware — coined by Bob Wallace to describe his word processor PC-Write in early 1983. Before this Jim Knopf (also known as Jim Button) and Andrew Fluegelman called their distributed software "user supported software" and "freeware" respectively, but it was Wallace's terminology that prevailed.

• SIMON - batch interactive test/debug software.

The name of this instruction set simulator software - that allowed batch application programs to be tested interactively from online terminals - did not originate from "Simulation Online" or similar. It was the name of the author's other son (see also OLIVER).

• Slashdot — a technology oriented weblog.

While registering the domain, Slashdot-creator Rob Malda wanted to make the URL silly, and unpronounceable ("http://slashdot.org" gets pronounced as "h t t p colon slash slash slash dot dot org"). Alternatively, many say that the Slashdot(/.) name refers to the *NIX command line interpretation of the "root" directory, or a play on the website being the "root" of all tech news.

• sosumi — one of the system sounds introduced in Apple Computer's System 7 operating system in 1991.

Apple Computer had a long litigation history with Apple Records, The Beatles' recording company. Fearing that the ability to record musical sound would cause yet more legal action, the Apple legal department allegedly ordered the sound to be renamed from its original, musical name. So the developers changed the name to sosumi ("so sue me"). Depending on who was asked, they quipped that it was Japanese for either "absence of sound" or "a light pleasing tone".

• spam — unwanted repetitious messages, such as unsolicited bulk e-mail.

The term spam is derived from the Monty Python SPAM sketch, set in a cafe where everything on the menu includes SPAM luncheon meat. While a customer plaintively asks for some kind of food without SPAM in it, the server reiterates the SPAM-filled menu. Soon, a chorus of Vikings join in with a song: "SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, SPAM, lovely SPAM, wonderful SPAM", over and over again, drowning out all conversation.

• SPIM — a simulator for a virtual machine closely resembling the instruction set of MIPS processors, is simply MIPS spelled backwards. In recent time, spim has also come to mean SPam sent over Instant Messaging.

• Swing — a graphics library for Java.

Swing was the code-name of the project that developed the new graphic components (the successor of AWT). It was named after swing, a style of dance band jazz that was popularized in the 1930s and unexpectedly revived in the 1990s. Although an unofficial name for the components, it gained popular acceptance with the use of the word in the package names for the Swing API, which begin with javax.swing.