[Tutor] A brief excursion on booting and hair pulling

[Scot Stevenson]

Hello Magnus,=20

> AFAIK, the origin of the word goes back to the impossible
> concept of lifting oneself in one's bootstraps.=20

...which different languages use different metaphors for: German has /sic=
h an=20
den Haaren aus dem Sumpf ziehen/ ("pull yourself out of the swamp by your=
 own=20
hair"), which I believe goes back to the stories of Baron M=FCnchhausen. =
So if=20
Zuse had made it through way back then with his computer, the process=20
probably would not be called "booting", but rather "hair pulling", and yo=
u=20
would have a "hair disk" instead of a "boot disk". Or maybe it would be=20
called a "braid disk".=20

And then, of course, there is the Heinlein short story "By his Bootstraps=
",=20
which I'm still not sure I understand...

Y, Scot

--=20
  Scot W. Stevenson -- scot@possum.in-berlin.de -- Zepernick, Germany