Date: Sat, 30 Aug 1997 11:47:17 +0930 From: Greg Lehey <grog@lemis.com> To: Cliff Addy <fbsdlist@federation.addy.com> Cc: questions@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: Satanic logo Message-ID: <19970830114717.63559@lemis.com> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970829080723.28338A-100000@federation.addy.com>; from Cliff Addy on Fri, Aug 29, 1997 at 08:10:54AM -0400 References: <Pine.BSF.3.95q.970829080723.28338A-100000@federation.addy.com>
next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Fri, Aug 29, 1997 at 08:10:54AM -0400, Cliff Addy wrote:
> We have the "powered by" logo on our home page. About once a month we get
> a query or complaint on the demon. I basically know the origin, but is it
> officially documented somewhere, so we can point these folks to the
> "official" explanation of why we are using an OS with a devil mascot?
>
> Please, no flames on why these people are idiots and how we don't need
> their business. We're just looking for answers.
Here's something from the preface to "The Complete FreeBSD".
The little daemon on the cover of this book symbolizes BSD. It is
included with kind permission of Marshall Kirk McKusick, one of the
leading members of the former Computer Sciences Research Group at the
University of California at Berkeley, and owner of the daemon's
copyright.
The daemon has occasionally given rise to a certain amount of
confusion. In fact, it's a joking reference to processes which run in
the background. The outside world occasionally sees things
differently, as the following story indicates:
Newsgroups: alt.humor.best-of-usenet
Subject: [comp.org.usenix] A Great Daemon Story
From: Rob Kolstad <kolstad@bsdi.com>
Newsgroups: comp.org.usenix
Subject: A Great Daemon Story
Linda Branagan is an expert on daemons. She has a T-shirt that sports
the daemon in tennis shoes that appears on the cover of the 4.3BSD
manuals and The Design and Implementation of the 4.3BSD UNIX Operating
System by S. Leffler, M. McKusick, M. Karels, J. Quarterman,
Addison-Wesley Publishing Company, Reading, MA 1989.
She tells the following story about wearing the 4.3BSD daemon T-shirt:
Last week I walked into a local "home style cookin'
restaurant/watering hole" in Texas to pick up a take-out order. I
spoke briefly to the waitress behind the counter, who told me my order
would be done in a few minutes.
So, while I was busy gazing at the farm implements hanging on the
walls, I was approached by two "natives." These guys might just be
the original Texas rednecks.
"Pardon us, ma'am. Mind if we ask you a question?"
Well, people keep telling me that Texans are real friendly, so I
nodded.
"Are you a Satanist?"
Well, at least they didn't ask me if I liked to party.
"Uh, no, I can't say that I am."
"Gee, ma'am. Are you sure about that?" they asked.
I put on my biggest, brightest Dallas Cowboys cheerleader smile and
said, "No, I'm positive. The closest I've ever come to Satanism is
watching Geraldo."
"Hmmm. Interesting. See, we was just wondering why it is you have
the lord of darkness on your chest there."
I was this close to slapping one of them and causing a scene--then I
stopped and noticed the shirt I happened to be wearing that day. Sure
enough, it had a picture of a small, devilish-looking creature that
has for some time now been associated with a certain operating system.
In this particular representation, the creature was wearing sneakers.
They continued: "See, ma'am, we don't exactly appreciate it when
people show off pictures of the devil. Especially when he's lookin'
so friendly."
These idiots sounded terrifyingly serious.
Me: "Oh, well, see, this isn't really the devil, it's just, well,
it's sort of a mascot.
Native: "And what kind of football team has the devil as a mascot?"
Me: "Oh, it's not a team. It's an operating--uh, a kind of
computer."
I figured that an ATM machine was about as much technology as these
guys could handle, and I knew that if I so much as uttered the word
"UNIX" I would only make things worse.
Native: "Where does this satanical computer come from?"
Me: "California. And there's nothing satanical about it really."
Somewhere along the line here, the waitress noticed my
predicament--but these guys probably outweighed her by 600 pounds,
so all she did was look at me sympathetically and run off into the
kitchen.
Native: "Ma'am, I think you're lying. And we'd appreciate it if you'd
leave the premises now."
Fortunately, the waitress returned that very instant with my order,
and they agreed that it would be okay for me to actually pay for my
food before I left. While I was at the cash register, they amused
themselves by talking to each other.
Native #1: "Do you think the police know about these devil computers?"
Native #2: "If they come from California, then the FBI oughta know
about 'em."
They escorted me to the door. I tried one last time: "You're really
blowing this all out of proportion. A lot of people use this `kind of
computers.' Universities, researchers, businesses. They're actually
very useful."
Big, big, big mistake. I should have guessed at what came next.
Native: "Does the government use these devil computers?"
Me: "Yes."
Another big boo-boo.
Native: "And does the government pay for 'em? With our tax dollars?"
I decided that it was time to jump ship.
Me: "No. Nope. Not at all. Your tax dollars never entered the
picture at all. I promise. No sir, not a penny. Our good Christian
congressmen would never let something like that happen. Nope. Never.
Bye."
Texas. What a country.
In fact, the daemon tradition goes back quite a way. Just recently
the following message went through the FreeBSD-chat mailing list:
To: "Jonathan M. Bresler" <jmb@freefall.freebsd.org>
Cc: obrien@antares.aero.org (Mike O'Brien),
joerg_wunsch@uriah.heep.sax.de,
chat@FreeBSD.org, juphoff@tarsier.cv.nrao.edu
Date: Tue, 07 May 1996 16:27:20 -0700
Sender: owner-chat@FreeBSD.org
> details and gifs PLEASE!
If you insist. :-)
Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for around 1976 or so (see
Peter Salus' A Quarter Century of UNIX for details), when the first
really national UNIX meeting was held in Urbana, Illinois. This would
be after the "forty people in a Brooklyn classroom" meeting held by
Mel Ferentz (yeah I was at that too) and the more-or-less simultaneous
West Coast meeting(s) hosted by SRI, but before the UNIX Users Group
was really incorporated as a going concern.
I knew Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie would be there. I was
living in Chicago at the time, and so was comic artist Phil Foglio,
whose star was just beginning to rise. At that time I was a bonded
locksmith. Phil's roommate had unexpectedly split town, and he was
the only one who knew the combination to the wall safe in their
apartment. This is the only apartment I've ever seen that had a wall
safe, but it sure did have one, and Phil had some stuff locked in
there. I didn't hold out much hope, since safes are far beyond where
I was (and am) in my locksmithing sphere of competence, but I figured
"no guts no glory" and told him I'd give it a whack. In return, I
told him, he could do some T-shirt art for me. He readily agreed.
Wonder of wonders, this safe was vulnerable to the same
algorithm that Master locks used to be susceptible to. I opened it in
about 15 minutes of manipulation. It was my greatest moment as a
locksmith and Phil was overjoyed. I went down to my lab and shot some
Polaroid snaps of the PDP-11 system I was running UNIX on at the time,
and gave it to Phil with some descriptions of the visual puns I
wanted: pipes, demons with forks running along the pipes, a "bit
bucket" named /dev/null, all that.
What Phil came up with is the artwork that graced the first
decade's worth of "UNIX T-shirts", which were made by a Ma and Pa
operation in a Chicago suburb. They turned out transfer art using a
3M color copier in their basement. Hence, the PDP-11 is reversed (the
tape drives are backwards) but since Phil left off the front panel,
this was hard to tell. His trademark signature was photo-reversed,
but was recopied by the T-shirt people and "re-forwardized", which
is why it looks a little funny compared to his real signature.
Dozens and dozens of these shirts were produced. Bell Labs
alone accounted for an order of something like 200 for a big picnic.
However, only four (4) REAL originals were produced: these have a
distinctive red collar and sleeve cuff. One went to Ken, one to
Dennis, one to me, and one to my then-wife. I now possess the latter
two shirts. Ken and Dennis were presented with their shirts at the
Urbana conference.
People ordered these shirts direct from the Chicago couple.
Many years later, when I was living in LA, I got a call from Armando
Stettner, then at DEC, asking about that now-famous artwork. I told
him I hadn't talked to the Illinois T-shirt makers in years. At his
request I called them up. They'd folded the operation years ago and
were within days of discarding all the old artwork. I requested its
return, and duly received it back in the mail. It looked strange,
seeing it again in its original form, a mirror image of the shirts
with which I and everyone else were now familiar.
I sent the artwork to Armando, who wanted to give it to the
Ultrix marketing people. They came out with the Ultrix poster that
showed a nice shiny Ultrix machine contrasted with the
chewing-gum-and-string PDP-11 UNIX people were familiar with. They
still have the artwork, so far as I know.
I no longer recall the exact contents of the letter I sent
along with the artwork. I did say that as far as I knew, Phil had no
residual rights to the art, since it was a `work made for hire',
though nothing was in writing (and note this was decades before the
new copyright law). I do not now recall if I explicitly assigned all
rights to DEC. What is certain is that John Lassiter's daemon,
whether knowingly borrowed from the original, or created by parallel
evolution, postdates the first horde of UNIX daemons by at least a
decade and probably more. And if Lassiter's daemon looks a lot like a
Phil Foglio creation, there's a reason.
I have never scanned in Phil's artwork; I've hardly ever
scanned in anything, so I have no GIFs to show. But I have some very
very old UNIX T-shirts in startlingly good condition. Better
condition than I am at any rate: I no longer fit into either of them.
Mike O'Brien
creaky antique
Note the date of this message: it's very recent. There is still a
possibility that Mike will scan the original teeshirt, and that it
will be made available. Remember, you read it here first.
Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?19970830114717.63559>