Koan programs (was RE: Infocom on PDP-11)

[Vintage Computer Festival]

On Thu, 12 May 2005, Paul Koning wrote:

> Ditto the IBM 1620, where all I/O instructions on all the devices
> would stall the CPU while the I/O was in progress.  In that case, the
> input might terminate by one of several rules -- always a card for the
> card reader, terminated by CR on the typewriter, or terminated by a
> "record mark" (a distinct character) on the paper tape reader if I
> remember right.
>
> On the other hand, this approach did make I/O very easy -- a "card to
> printer" program would take only three instructions and fit easily on
> one machine language (decimal, not binary) card.

I recently learned of "Koan" programs, which are one card programs, i.e.
one card card-to-tape or card-to-printer, etc.  It's sort of like the 1-
or 2-line BASIC programming contests that Nibble magazine used to run (I
loved those) or the more recent 1K coding contests.

Does anyone know where the term "Koan" originates?

-- 

Sellam Ismail                                        Vintage Computer Festival
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