Foobar

3 definitions found

From Virtual Entity of Relevant Acronyms (Version 1.9, June 2002) [vera]:

  FOOBAR
       FTP Operation Over Big Address Records (RFC 1639, FTP)
       
       

From Jargon File (4.3.1, 29 Jun 2001) [jargon]:



  foobar n. [very common] Another widely used {metasyntactic variable};
     see {foo} for etymology. Probably originally propagated through
     DECsystem manuals by Digital Equipment Corporation ({DEC}) in 1960s and
     early 1970s; confirmed sightings there go back to 1972. Hackers do _not_
     generally use this to mean {FUBAR} in either the slang or jargon sense.
     See also {Fred Foobar}. In RFC1639, "FOOBAR" was made an abbreviation
     for "FTP Operation Over Big Address Records", but this was an obvious
     {backronym}. It has been plausibly suggested that "foobar" spread among
     early computer engineers partly because of FUBAR and partly because "foo
     bar" parses in electronics techspeak as an inverted foo signal; if a
     digital signal is coded so that a positive voltage or high current
     condition represents a "1", then a horizontal bar is commonly placed
     over the signal label.
  
  

From The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (27 SEP 03) [foldoc]:

  foobar
       
           Another common {metasyntactic variable}; see {foo}.
          Hackers do *not* generally use this to mean {FUBAR} in either
          the slang or jargon sense.
       
          According to a german correspondent, the term was coined
          during WW2 by allied troops who could not pronounce the german
          word "furchtbar" (horrible, terrible, awful).
       
          [{Jargon File}]
       
          (2003-07-03)