刚刚看了PPT的发明者
Robert Gaskins的个人主页,吸引我的一个主要原因是因为他回复了一个中国blogger关于PPT命名历史的问题.对于一个陌生人询问的一个不是很重要的问题,Gaskins本人在至少接近七十岁,现在还是高级管理人员,依然回复了一封超级长信,详细地解释了PPT命名历史.这封信(附后)令我汗颜.自己已经有多久时间没有好好写东西了?生活中杂事是很多,但这并不能成为我忽略最重要的东西的理由.而且我有什么资格觉得哪些东西是trivial的呢?
引起我好奇的几点如下:
1 Gaskins学士学位拿的是Literature然后转到了计算机!!!
2 他开始进行PPT的研发工作已经是40岁之后的事了!!!
3 他于五十多岁去英国研究音乐!
4 六十多岁又回美国做音乐网站了
当然,这些看上去不相关的专业又有着千丝万缕的联系,在60年代Linguistic的人学计算机是很多的,他以前做的也是艺术相关的工作而最后做网站依然是艺术相关的.
不过我想说的是,要抓紧时间做好手头的工作.get busy living or get busy dying, that's goddamn right
以下是一个简单的背景
| 1968–1978: | Studied and practiced computer science, especially applications to research in humanities (literature, art, music) and linguistics, at UC Berkeley |
| 1978–1984: | Set up and managed a new computer science research section for an international telecommunications R&D laboratory near Stanford |
| 1984–1987: | Invented PowerPoint, the first product to attract strategic venture capital from Apple and later the first significant acquisition made by Microsoft |
| 1987–1993: | Headed Microsoft’s business unit in Silicon Valley, managing the growth of PowerPoint to $100 million annual sales worldwide on Mac and Windows |
| 1993–2001: | Moved to London, restored a historic home in Westminster, researched music history in British libraries and museums, studied the concertina |
| 2001–2009: | Created authoritative websites about concertina history to draw together current research, after 10 years moved back (mostly) to San Francisco |
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Dear Eddie Liu,
Thanks for writing about the meaning of "PPT".
"PPT" is not properly an acronym for PowerPoint, because
"Acronyms ... are abbreviations that are formed using the
initial components in a phrase or name. These components may
be individual letters (as in CEO) or parts of words (as in Benelux or
Delmarva)."
--
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acronym An acronym can be formed by taking the initial letters of multiple
words, sometimes only the important words, for example
BBC: British Broadcasting Corporation
CNN: Cable News Network
USA: United States of America
(there are other types as well).
So an acronym is a special kind of abbreviation formed from initial
components such as letters, and "PPT" was not made up that way. (All
acronyms are abbreviations, but most abbreviations are not acronyms.)
The need for the abbreviation "PPT" came about in this way. In
Microsoft's early MS-DOS system and later in Windows, every filename
ended in a dot (".") followed by a short "file type". (See
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_file_types.) In MS-DOS in the
1970s, and then in early versions of Windows built on MS-DOS, the file
type had to be only 3 letters. A filename had a maximum of 8 letters,
then the dot, then a 3-letter file type, so this naming format was
called "8+3". When PowerPoint was invented, we had to decide on a
3-letter abbreviation to identify its files to the operating system.
Even though PowerPoint was developed first for Macintosh, we knew from
the very beginning that the most important target would be Microsoft
Windows, so we planned for it all along.
In English, abbreviations of single words are often formed by
taking the first letter of the word and the last letter of the word,
adding between them the most important letters from the middle to show
what the word sounds like. For example,
MR: mister
JR: junior
DR: doctor
REVD: reverend
MGMT: management
We made "PPT" as an abbreviation for PowerPoint, by taking the
first 'P" and the last "T", adding between them the middle "P":
PowerPoinT. This was natural, because in English "power" is a common
word all by itself, and "point" is a common word all by itself, so
people understand "PowerPoint" as a combination of the two
words--further indicated by the fact that we capitalized both "P"s.
"PPT" was a natural English abbreviation for the word "PowerPoint"
and it was the right length (3 letters) to be an MS-DOS file type.
As to the others, any computer program deals with many types of
files. Each file type required a different 3-letter abbreviation. We
made up other file types by making them similar to "PPT"--for
instance, "PPS" for "PowerPoint Show". Since they all start with "P",
you can sort a list of files by their file types and find all the ones
for the PowerPoint program sorted together.
Much later (as you say, starting with PowerPoint 2007), Microsoft
introduced new files formats, the XML-based formats. By this time,
file types could be longer than 3 characters because the foundations
of Windows had been entirely rewritten. For example, in early
versions of Windows, HTML files could only have the file type "HTM"
("index.htm"), but now you often see HTML files of file type "HTML"
"index.html").
Microsoft used this freedom to make 4-letter file types for the new
formats, by using the old file types ("PPT", "PPS") and adding an "X"
(from "XML"), resulting in new file types "PPTX", "PPSX" and so forth.
This way you can look at a listing of one of the new files and see
instantly that it is, for example, "the XML revision of a PPT file".
I hope this explains how "PPT" came about.
Best regards,
Robert Gaskins
