The Unix Magic Poster
Things I can identify in the poster:<p>- A wizard (which is a reference to a highly knowledgeable UNIX expert)<p>- the cauldron the wizard is using is in the shape of a seashell, and there are shells on the wizard&#x27;s hat (on UNIX the shell is a textual interface between the user and the operating system)<p>- the wizard&#x27;s hat has the word &quot;su&quot; on it (&quot;su&quot; is the &quot;superuser&quot; command used to &quot;become&quot; a &quot;superuser&quot;, ie. the most powerful user on a UNIX system, where one can perform administrative tasks that ordinary users are not capable of doing)<p>- the wizard&#x27;s robe contains: &quot;&gt;&quot; and &quot;&lt;&quot;, which are symbols used for input and output redirection, &quot;%&quot; and &quot;$&quot; which are sometimes used in shell prompts and &quot;$&quot; is used in regular expressions to indicate the end of the line, &quot;*&quot; is another character used in regular expressions to mean &quot;zero or more of the previous character&quot; and used in the shell for &quot;globbing&quot; (as a &quot;wildcard&quot; for specifying a variable or  &quot;anything goes&quot; part of a filename), &quot;!&quot; is used in shell history commands to reference previous commands<p>- there are containers at the bottom of the picture with the words: &quot;diff&quot; - a utility used to show difference between various texts, &quot;tar&quot; - a utility for creating, listing, and extracting archives, &quot;null&quot; - a reference to &#x2F;dev&#x2F;null, a &quot;device&quot; file that outputs the end of file when read and which discards any output sent to it, &quot;troff&quot; is a text formatting utility sometimes used for formatting documentation, &quot;awk&quot; is a language used for text manipulation, &quot;C&quot; is the main programming language used on UNIX, and &quot;B&quot; is a language that &quot;C&quot; descended from, &quot;UUCP&quot; - a once common but now obsolete file transfer utility<p>- there is a scroll with the words &quot;shell script&quot; on it, which refers to a program containing shell commands<p>- in the background there are pouches with the words: &quot;spawn&quot;, which refers to creating a new process, what looks like &quot;JFO&quot; (not sure what this is), and &quot;nroff&quot; - another text formatting utility, &quot;root&quot; (the default name of the &quot;superuser&quot; account)<p>- there&#x27;s a shelf with books bearing these titles: &quot;Daemons&quot; (which are background processes, usually used as &quot;servers&quot; on a unix system, which perform some function indefinitely, contrasting with regular applications which are more one-off processes that usually perform one function and exit), &quot;Who am I&quot; - a reference to the &quot;whoami&quot; utility that will tell you your user id, &quot;traps&quot; - the &quot;trap&quot; utility can be used to respond to signals, which are one way to perform inter-process communication on UNIX, usually used to indicate exceptional events, &quot;Spells&quot; - a word in keeping with the wizard theme, but I don&#x27;t know if there&#x27;s anything specific in UNIX that would be considerd a &quot;spell&quot; per se, &quot;Curses&quot; - a graphics library<p>- there is a container on the shelf with the word &quot;pwd&quot;, which is a shell command used to tell you what the current directory is<p>- there is a box on the shelf with the word &quot;mbox&quot;, which is a type of mail file on UNIX, and this box with the word &quot;mbox&quot; contains scrolls, which could be mail messages<p>- there is a black cat, which is also in keeping with the wizard theme, but I&#x27;m not sure whether it corresponds to anything specific in UNIX either (update: of course it&#x27;s a reference to one of the most common and well-known commands on UNIX: &quot;cat&quot;, which is used to output the contents of a file... don&#x27;t know how I missed one of the most obvious symbols in the whole picture!)<p>- there is a black boot leaning against the wall.  To &quot;boot&quot; a user off a UNIX system is to terminate or end their connection, &quot;kicking&quot; them off the system.  &quot;booting&quot; a UNIX system is a term used for starting the system.  &quot;rebooting&quot; refers to restarting the system.<p>- in the window a person with a scythe is reaping (or chopping down) some crops... to &quot;reap&quot; processes on UNIX is to kill them (or terminate&#x2F;end them)<p>- under the ceiling are many pipes.  pipes are used on UNIX for interprocess communication<p>- there is a bucket under a leaking pipe.  The bucket may be there just for aesthetic reasons, though there is an informal &quot;bit bucket&quot; term which could refer to an abstraction for discarding information.  The leaking pipe might be a reference to a &quot;leaking abstraction&quot;, which is an abstraction (a high-level representation of something) which is supposed to &quot;abstract away&quot; or not reveal anything about how it&#x27;s implemented, but when it &quot;leaks&quot; it inadvertently reveals something about how it&#x27;s implemented anyway, causing all sorts of problems, like difficulties in switching to a different implementation.<p>- other probably purely aesthetic elements in the picture are a castle on a hill, mountains, and a sky seen through the window, a fireplace and a table.  the &quot;oregano&quot; container on the table is probably also purely aethetic, as is the mortar (in the pestle with the word &quot;tar&quot;)<p>- on the table lies a fork, which refers to &quot;forking&quot; a process (which creates a copy from an existing process and is a way UNIX has of creating new &quot;child&quot; processes from existing &quot;parent&quot; processes)<p>- on the &quot;awk&quot; container on the table is a spool of thread.  &quot;threads&quot; on UNIX are lightweight processes.  the spool of thread has the letters &quot;usr&quot; on it, which refers to the <i>&#x2F;usr</i> partition on a UNIX system, which usually contains all sorts of UNIX utilities and libraries.  To &quot;spool&quot; messages is to collect them for processing.<p>- the wizard is pouring glowing liquid from test tubes, with what look like circuit traces coming out of the cauldron.  In the cauldron there is a ladle with an iron hook at the end.  I&#x27;m not sure what any of these elements are supposed to represent.<p>- there is a spigot in the bottom of the cauldron, and it&#x27;s emptying out in to the container labeled &quot;null&quot;, which (as mentioned above) is a reference to the <i>&#x2F;dev&#x2F;null</i> device on UNIX, which will discard everything sent to it, so can be thought of as having infinite capacity, so even though it&#x27;s a lot smaller in size than the cauldron all the liquid from the cauldron and more could be poured in to it without overflowing<p>- there is a log with the word &quot;login&quot;, next to the fireplace.  &quot;login&quot; is a process used to respond to what the user types at the &quot;login:&quot; prompt when first connecting to a UNIX machine.  A &quot;log&quot; is a text file containing (usually timestamped) information about what a process is doing or to record series of events<p>- on the wizard&#x27;s hat is a scroll which reads: &quot;DMR&quot;, &quot;KT&quot;, and &quot;BWK&quot;.  &quot;KT&quot; is probably Ken Thompson, one of the creators of UNIX.  I don&#x27;t recognize the others.<p>That&#x27;s all I can spot.<p>Here is a direct link to the high resolution 32 MB PNG image of the poster: [1]<p>[1] - <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;download&#x2F;unix-magic-poster-gary-overcare-1&#x2F;Unix" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;archive.org&#x2F;download&#x2F;unix-magic-poster-gary-overcare...</a> Magic Poster - Gary Overcare (1).png