from
Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)
religion of CHI
/ki:/, n.
[Case Western Reserve University] Yet another hackish parody religion
(see also {Church of the SubGenius}, {Discordianism}). In the mid-70s,
the canonical "Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were
taught in Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards and run
on a Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named CHI.
The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever the
worshiper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would
recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS,
ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five functions in the
appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the special
pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more common /ahbz/
and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's arrival was
{considered harmful}.
from
The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)
religion of CHI
/ki:/ [Case Western Reserve University] Yet another hackish
parody religion (see also {Church of the SubGenius},
{Discordianism}). In the mid-70s, the canonical "Introduction
to Programming" courses at CWRU were taught in {ALGOL}, and
student exercises were punched on cards and run on a Univac
1108 system using a homebrew operating system named CHI. The
religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever the
worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she
would recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN,
ARCCOS, ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five
functions in the appropriate chapter of the ALGOL manual; note
the special pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the
more common /ahbz/ and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to
warn of 11:08's arrival was {considered harmful}.
[{Jargon File}]