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]