[W/K] :: TWENEX

  TWENEX /twe'neks/ n. The TOPS-20 operating system by DEC -- the
     second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 -- preferred by most PDP-10 hackers
     over TOPS-10 (that is, by those who were not {ITS or {WAITS}
     partisans). TOPS-20 began in 1969 as Bolt, Beranek & Newman's TENEX
     operating system using special paging hardware. By the early 1970s,
     almost all of the systems on the ARPANET ran TENEX. DEC purchased the
     rights to TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own. The first
     in-house code name for the operating system was VIROS (VIRtual memory
     Operating System); when customers started asking questions, the name was
     changed to SNARK so DEC could truthfully deny that there was any project
     called VIROS. When the name SNARK became known, the name was briefly
     reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when someone
     objected that `krans' meant `funeral wreath' in Swedish (though some
     Swedish speakers have since said it means simply `wreath'; this part of
     the story may be apocryphal). Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name
     of the operating system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed. The
     hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed it TWENEX (a
     contraction of `twenty TENEX'), even though by this point very little of
     the original TENEX code remained (analogously to the differences between
     AT&T V6 Unix and BSD). DEC people cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but
     the term caught on nevertheless (the written abbreviation `20x' was also
     used). TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact, there was a
     period in the early 1980s when it commanded as fervent a culture of
     partisans as Unix or ITS -- but DEC's decision to scrap all the internal
     rivals to the VAX architecture and its relatively stodgy VMS OS killed
     the DEC-20 and put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in the sun. DEC
     attempted to convince TOPS-20 users to convert to VMS, but instead, by
     the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20 hackers had migrated to Unix.
  
  

  TWENEX
       
           /twe'neks/ The TOPS-20 operating system
          by DEC - the second proprietary OS for the PDP-10 -
          preferred by most PDP-10 hackers over TOPS-10 (that is, by
          those who were not ITS or WAITS partisans).  TOPS-20 began
          in 1969 as Bolt, Beranek & Newman's TENEX operating system
          using special paging hardware.  By the early 1970s, almost all
          of the systems on the ARPANET ran TENEX.  DEC purchased the
          rights to TENEX from BBN and began work to make it their own.
          The first in-house code name for the operating system was
          VIROS (VIRtual memory Operating System); when customers
          started asking questions, the name was changed to SNARK so DEC
          could truthfully deny that there was any project called VIROS.
          When the name SNARK became known, the name was briefly
          reversed to become KRANS; this was quickly abandoned when
          someone objected that "krans" meant "funeral wreath" in
          Swedish (though some Swedish speakers have since said it means
          simply "wreath"; this part of the story may be apocryphal).
       
          Ultimately DEC picked TOPS-20 as the name of the operating
          system, and it was as TOPS-20 that it was marketed.  The
          hacker community, mindful of its origins, quickly dubbed it
          TWENEX (a contraction of "twenty TENEX"), even though by this
          point very little of the original TENEX code remained
          (analogously to the differences between AT&T V6 Unix and BSD).
          DEC people cringed when they heard "TWENEX", but the term
          caught on nevertheless (the written abbreviation "20x" was
          also used).  TWENEX was successful and very popular; in fact,
          there was a period in the early 1980s when it commanded as
          fervent a culture of partisans as Unix or ITS - but DEC's
          decision to scrap all the internal rivals to the VAX
          architecture and its relatively stodgy VMS OS killed the
          DEC-20 and put a sad end to TWENEX's brief day in the sun.
          DEC attempted to convince TOPS-20 users to convert to VMS,
          but instead, by the late 1980s, most of the TOPS-20 hackers
          had migrated to Unix.
       
          [{Jargon File]
       
          (1995-04-01)