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]
