el camino bignum

El Camino Bignum
 /el' [email protected]'noh big'nuhm/, n.

   The road mundanely called El Camino Real, running along San Francisco
   peninsula. It originally extended all the way down to Mexico City;
   many portions of the old road are still intact. Navigation on the San
   Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino Real, which
   defines {logical} north and south even though it isn't really
   north-south in many places. El Camino Real runs right past Stanford
   University and so is familiar to hackers.

   The Spanish word `real' (which has two syllables: /ray.ahl'/) means
   `royal'; El Camino Real is `the royal road'. In the FORTRAN language,
   a real quantity is a number typically precise to seven significant
   digits, and a double precision quantity is a larger floating-point
   number, precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other
   languages have similar real types).

   When a hacker from MIT visited Stanford in 1976, he remarked what a
   long road El Camino Real was. Making a pun on `real', he started
   calling it `El Camino Double Precision' -- but when the hacker was
   told that the road was hundreds of miles long, he renamed it `El
   Camino Bignum', and that name has stuck. (See {bignum}.)

   [GLS has since let slip that the unnamed hacker in this story was in
   fact himself --ESR]

   In the early 1990s, the synonym El Camino Virtual was been reported as
   an alternate at IBM and Amdahl sites in the Valley.

   Mathematically literate hackers in the Valley have also been heard to
   refer to some major cross-street intersecting El Camino Real as "El
   Camino Imaginary". One popular theory is that the intersection is
   located near Moffett Field -- where they keep all those complex
   planes.
    

El Camino Bignum

   <humour> /el' k*-mee'noh big'nuhm/ The road mundanely called
   El Camino Real, a road through the San Francisco peninsula
   that originally extended all the way down to Mexico City and
   many portions of which are still intact.  Navigation on the
   San Francisco peninsula is usually done relative to El Camino
   Real, which defines {logical} north and south even though it
   isn't really north-south many places.  El Camino Real runs
   right past {Stanford University}.

   The Spanish word "real" (which has two syllables: /ray-al'/)
   means "royal"; El Camino Real is "the royal road".  In the
   {Fortran} language, a "{real}" quantity is a number typically
   precise to seven significant digits, and a "{double
   precision}" quantity is a larger {floating-point} number,
   precise to perhaps fourteen significant digits (other
   languages have similar "real" types).

   When a {hacker} from {MIT} visited Stanford in 1976, he
   remarked what a long road El Camino Real was.  Making a pun on
   "real", he started calling it "El Camino Double Precision" -
   but when the hacker was told that the road was hundreds of
   miles long, he renamed it "El Camino Bignum", and that name
   has stuck.  (See {bignum}).

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1996-07-16)