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Our naming sucked.

The company was called Tao, which nobody could pronounce.

The first OS was TAOS.

The second OS, which succeeded it, was Elate. Except, when Elate was running hosted on another OS, it was called int<b>e</b>nt. Yes, the bold e was part of the name. Except, when Amiga had it, it was called Amiga Anywhere.

Most comments of the era run along the lines of 'but what the hell is this?'. And for good reason.




I worked on the gcc back-end for TAOS. One requirement was a special output format called a "tool" which was like a single subroutine shared library. It was specified with the standard "-f" gcc extension syntax: "-ftaos-tool".

I heard about the name change to "Elate" second hand. "taos" had to change to "elate" everywhere -- even the options.

The naming may or may not have sucked, but it definitely did blow having to tell the compiler to "-felate-tool".


LMAO! That's the best command fail I've ever read!


Oh my gosh. And you also made a pun.


> called Tao, which nobody could pronounce.

Pronouncing skills (the absent of) of native English speakers constantly surprises me. But this case goes to absurd levels...




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