'Splat book' origins

[Tetsubo]

Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.
--
Tetsubo
Deviant Art: http://ironstaff.deviantart.com/
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[Ubiquitous]

In article <km63rm$6o1$1...@dont-email.me>, tet...@comcast.net wrote:

> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.

I think it had something to do using asterich (or "splat") to describe
all the extra books, i.e., "* books"


--
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saw that and will most likely see it again in the future."
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[dr...@bin.sh]

Alien mind control rays made Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> write:
> In article <km63rm$6o1$1...@dont-email.me>, tet...@comcast.net wrote:
>> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.
>
> I think it had something to do using asterich (or "splat") to describe
> all the extra books, i.e., "* books"

this matches my understanding of the term.
* aka splat is a common wildcard symbol.

--
n_n n_n dr...@bin.sh (CARRIER LOST) <http://www.bin.sh/>
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| | " " | | "The snow doesn't give a soft white damn whom it touches."
|_|_[T]_|_| <http://donjon.bin.sh/d20/weather/>

[Ubiquitous]

In article <uaadnXVZYv91ehvM...@iphouse.net>, dr...@bin.sh wrote:
>Alien mind control rays made Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> write:
>> tet...@comcast.net wrote:

>>> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.
>>
>> I think it had something to do using asterich (or "splat") to describe
>> all the extra books, i.e., "* books"
>
>this matches my understanding of the term.
>* aka splat is a common wildcard symbol.

I think it's a stupid name for asterich.

--
"Re-electing Obama is like backing The Titanic up and hitting the
iceberg a second time."

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

On 5/5/13 4:34 PM, Ubiquitous wrote:
> In article <km63rm$6o1$1...@dont-email.me>, tet...@comcast.net wrote:
>
>> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.
>
> I think it had something to do using asterich (or "splat") to describe
> all the extra books, i.e., "* books"
>

Really? I thought it came from the "splat" sound that a large mound of
(usually softcover) books makes when you dump it on a table, or when you
add another such book to the pile.


--
Sea Wasp
/^\
;;;
Website: http://www.grandcentralarena.com Blog:
http://seawasp.livejournal.com

[tussock]

Tetsubo wrote:

> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.

rec.games.frp, before the split. First used to refer to the clanbooks,
tribebooks, and magebooks in the World of Darkness line collectively as
*books.
People in those ancient times, being educated in typing classes, would
call the * character a "splat" out in real life. Those specific line of
suppliments soon lent their new moniker to all similar lines in an often
pejorative sense as "splat books", including the earlier Complete splats
from TSR amoungst others.

--
tussock

[Harold Groot]

On Sun, 05 May 2013 19:47:44 -0400, Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net>
wrote:

>In article <uaadnXVZYv91ehvM...@iphouse.net>, dr...@bin.sh wrote:
>>Alien mind control rays made Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> write:
>>> tet...@comcast.net wrote:
>
>>>> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.
>>>
>>> I think it had something to do using asterich (or "splat") to describe
>>> all the extra books, i.e., "* books"
>>
>>this matches my understanding of the term.
>>* aka splat is a common wildcard symbol.
>
>I think it's a stupid name for asterich.

It's a reference to the asterisk looking like a bug that got squashed
(and the written description of the sound that might be used in a
comic book when that happened).

So in 2E when they had lines of The Complete Books of (various races)
or The Complete (various classes) Handbooks and someone wanted to
refer to the entire series, they used the asterisk as a wildcard to
stand in for the various races and classes. So it would be Complete
Book of *, or * Handbook, or whatever. Then the similarity of the
looks of the * to a squashed bug was noted. These collectively became
known as "Splat Books", and generally refer to all
optional/supplemental works (even those without repeated words like
Complete or Handbook). So in 3E you have some Complete books (even
some that seem to overlap, like Complete Arcane and Complete Mage),
but you also have supplemental books like Unearthed Arcana (which
doesn't fit the * wildcard model) as also being a "Splat Book".

[Spalls Hurgenson]

On Mon, 06 May 2013 13:55:45 +1200, tussock <sc...@clear.net.nz>
wrote:

This is the story I have heard too, and I have no reason to disbelieve
it (also, the Internet confirms it. Believe in the Internet). Also, it
confirms my belief that Usenet is the source of all interesting things
on the Internet.

However, until I learned the above, I always thought it had something
to do with the fact that characters made using those books were so
overpowered that the end-result of any combat against them was that
the monsters would end up just a bloody smear - a splat, if you would
- on the ground.

I mean, what else could it have meant? I've never heard the term
"splat" used for an asterisk /except/ in reference to splat-books.

[WDS906 (less the 906)]

On 5/6/2013 8:14 AM, Spalls Hurgenson wrote:
> I mean, what else could it have meant? I've never heard the term
> "splat" used for an asterisk /except/ in reference to splat-books.

It was in use in the computer science field long before splat books.

[Loren Pechtel]

No--he's saying he's never heard the * referred to as "splat". I
agree with him, while I've used the * as wildcard for more than 30
years it's always been an "asterisk" or "star", not a "splat".

[Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor)]

Same here. The only place I ever saw it referred to that way was in
reference to V:TM's author Rein*Hagen, where it was said as
"Rein-Splat-Hagen, but I didn't realize that the "splat" part was an
established usage.

[WDS906 (less the 906)]

When I started working in IT in 1982 many (maybe most) people called *
"splat". It was weird at first but I got used to it.

[Rast]

Spalls Hurgenson wrote...

> I mean, what else could it have meant? I've never heard the term
> "splat" used for an asterisk /except/ in reference to splat-books.

I thought the term had something to do with TSR shatting those books
out like explosive diarrhea.

[Loren Pechtel]

On Mon, 06 May 2013 14:26:49 -0500, "WDS906 (less the 906)"

I'm wondering if it might be a regional usage or something.

[Harold Groot]

Very possibly. I never heard it referred to as "splat" UNTIL the
gaming reference. When typing in a command to find, say, all the text
files in a directory it was always referred to (in my classes/work
areas) as "star" (i.e. part of the command "Dir *.txt" it would be
spoken as "star dot text").

Since other people have said it was commonly spoken of as "splat"
BEFORE the gaming context (and I believe them), something like
"regional usage" seems very likely. That would also suggest that it
wasn't a parallel development, but rather someone who was already
using it as "splat" brought it into the gaming community, where it
spread a bit faster than in the computer field.

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of "WDS906 (less the 906)" <Bil...@seurer.net> is
inscribed:

In about 1980 there was a game for the Commodore PET which had a bug
zipping around the screen. You'd chase it using the cursor keys and
hit space to jump on it, resulting in an asterisk. The name of the
game: Splat.

But I doubt that's the origin of this. For one thing, I've never
called a * splat in any other computer context.

--
Jim

http://www.aaargh.org

[Loren Pechtel]

On Mon, 06 May 2013 21:38:02 GMT, que...@infionline.net (Harold
Groot) wrote:

>Very possibly. I never heard it referred to as "splat" UNTIL the
>gaming reference. When typing in a command to find, say, all the text
>files in a directory it was always referred to (in my classes/work
>areas) as "star" (i.e. part of the command "Dir *.txt" it would be
>spoken as "star dot text").
>
>Since other people have said it was commonly spoken of as "splat"
>BEFORE the gaming context (and I believe them), something like
>"regional usage" seems very likely. That would also suggest that it
>wasn't a parallel development, but rather someone who was already
>using it as "splat" brought it into the gaming community, where it
>spread a bit faster than in the computer field.

I can't recall ever hearing it as <splat>.txt, but I've never
associated with all that many other comptuer types since college.

[Paul Colquhoun]

The venerable Jargon File links it to computers:

http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/splat.html


--
Reverend Paul Colquhoun, ULC. http://andor.dropbear.id.au/
Asking for technical help in newsgroups? Read this first:
http://catb.org/~esr/faqs/smart-questions.html#intro

[tussock]

Sea Wasp (Ryk E. Spoor) wrote:
> Ubiquitous wrote:

>> Tetsubo wrote:
>>
>>> Does anyone know where the term 'splat book' originate from? Thanks.
>>
>> I think it had something to do using asterich (or "splat") to describe
>> all the extra books, i.e., "* books"
>
> Really? I thought it came from the "splat" sound that a large mound of
> (usually softcover) books makes when you dump it on a table, or when you
> add another such book to the pile.

That too. Good names grow extra meanings as they age. The notion that
there's something unpleasant just been placed on the table is also in there.

--
tussock

[Jim Davies]

On the grave of "WDS906 (less the 906)" <Bil...@seurer.net> is
inscribed:

In about 1980 there was a game for the Commodore PET which had a bug
zipping around the screen. You'd chase it using the cursor keys and
hit space to jump on it, resulting in an asterisk. The name of the
game: Splat.

But I doubt that's the origin of this. For one thing, I've never
called a * splat in any other computer context.

--
Jim

http://www.aaargh.org

[David Lamb]

FWIW I started grad school at a major ARPAnet-connected university in
1974, and there was a shared culture among several similar universities
that referred to * as "star". I never heard of "splat" until the gaming
usage, somewhere around the time of 2e.

Where are the cultural anthropologists when you need one?

[David Lamb]

On 07/05/2013 3:14 AM, Paul Colquhoun wrote:
>
> The venerable Jargon File links it to computers:
>
> http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/splat.html

But doesn't give a time reference. Is that the pre-Eric Raymond Jargon
file? My copy of the older Steele version is currently missing.

[dr...@bin.sh]

you can find many/most old versions of the jargon file at
http://catb.org/jargon/oldversions/

splat appears as an entry as far back as 1981.

--
._n_______n_. dr...@bin.sh (CARRIER LOST) <http://www.bin.sh/>
| --------- |== -----------------------------------------------------------
I"/""|"|Z7""' "Any problem caused by a tank can be solved by a tank."
lJ | |
|_l

[WDS906 (less the 906)]

On 5/7/2013 5:01 PM, dr...@bin.sh wrote:
> Alien mind control rays made David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca> write:
>> On 07/05/2013 3:14 AM, Paul Colquhoun wrote:
>>>
>>> The venerable Jargon File links it to computers:
>>>
>>> http://www.catb.org/jargon/html/S/splat.html
>>
>> But doesn't give a time reference. Is that the pre-Eric Raymond Jargon
>> file? My copy of the older Steele version is currently missing.
>
> you can find many/most old versions of the jargon file at
> http://catb.org/jargon/oldversions/
>
> splat appears as an entry as far back as 1981.

From poking around on the web it looks like IT may have picked up the
term from typesetting where it goes back even further.

[Anonymous Jack]

On May 5, 7:47 pm, Ubiquitous <web...@polaris.net> wrote:
> I think it's a stupid name for asterich.

You do save a couple of syllables, though

[Loren Pechtel]

On Tue, 07 May 2013 17:43:24 -0400, David Lamb <dal...@cs.queensu.ca>
wrote:

>FWIW I started grad school at a major ARPAnet-connected university in
>1974, and there was a shared culture among several similar universities
>that referred to * as "star". I never heard of "splat" until the gaming
>usage, somewhere around the time of 2e.
>
>Where are the cultural anthropologists when you need one?

Well, the only one I know is dead and I don't think D&D has a Medium
class. (Speak with Dead won't cut it.)

[Ubiquitous]

Heh.
Those "Complete" books became quite heinous.