[W/K] :: Foonly

  Foonly n. 1. The PDP-10 successor that was to have been built by the
     Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence Laboratory
     along with a new operating system. (The name itself came from FOO NLI,
     an error message emitted by a PDP-10 assembler at SAIL meaning "FOO is
     Not a Legal Identifier". The intention was to leapfrog from the old
     DEC timesharing system SAIL was then running to a new generation,
     bypassing TENEX which at that time was the ARPANET standard. ARPA
     funding for both the Super Foonly and the new operating system was cut
     in 1974. Most of the design team went to DEC and contributed greatly to
     the design of the PDP-10 model KL10. 2. The name of the company formed
     by Dave Poole, one of the principal Super Foonly designers, and one of
     hackerdom's more colorful personalities. Many people remember the parrot
     which sat on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion. 3. Any of the
     machines built by Poole's company. The first was the F-1 (a.k.a. Super
     Foonly), which was the computational engine used to create the graphics
     in the movie "TRON". The F-1 was the fastest PDP-10 ever built, but only
     one was ever made. The effort drained Foonly of its financial resources,
     and the company turned towards building smaller, slower, and much less
     expensive machines. Unfortunately, these ran not the popular TOPS-20
     but a TENEX variant called Foonex; this seriously limited their market.
     Also, the machines shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering
     prototypes requiring individual attention from more than usually
     competent site personnel, and thus had significant reliability problems.
     Poole's legendary temper and unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did
     not help matters. By the time of the Jupiter project cancellation in
     1983, Foonly's proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the Mars,
     and the company never quite recovered. See the Mars entry for the
     continuation and moral of this story.
  
  

  Foonly
       
          1. The PDP-10 successor that was to have been built by the
          Super Foonly project at the Stanford Artificial Intelligence
          Laboratory along with a new operating system.  The intention
          was to leapfrog from the old DEC time-sharing system SAIL
          was then running to a new generation, bypassing TENEX which at
          that time was the ARPANET standard.  ARPA funding for
          both the Super Foonly and the new operating system was cut in
          1974.  Most of the design team went to DEC and contributed
          greatly to the design of the PDP-10 model KL10.
       
          2. The name of the company formed by Dave Poole, one of the
          principal Super Foonly designers, and one of hackerdom's more
          colourful personalities.  Many people remember the parrot
          which sat on Poole's shoulder and was a regular companion.
       
          3. Any of the machines built by Poole's company.  The first
          was the F-1 (a.k.a.  Super Foonly), which was the
          computational engine used to create the graphics in the movie
          "TRON".  The F-1 was the fastest PDP-10 ever built, but only
          one was ever made.  The effort drained Foonly of its financial
          resources, and the company turned toward building smaller,
          slower, and much less expensive machines.  Unfortunately,
          these ran not the popular TOPS-20 but a TENEX variant called
          Foonex; this seriously limited their market.  Also, the
          machines shipped were actually wire-wrapped engineering
          prototypes requiring individual attention from more than
          usually competent site personnel, and thus had significant
          reliability problems.  Poole's legendary temper and
          unwillingness to suffer fools gladly did not help matters.  By
          the time of the Jupiter project cancellation in 1983, Foonly's
          proposal to build another F-1 was eclipsed by the Mars, and
          the company never quite recovered.  See the Mars entry for
          the continuation and moral of this story.
       
          [{Jargon File]