Earlier this year, PCMag offered up a brief history of malware. While researching the story, we had a little back and forth regarding the origin of the term “computer virus.”
One side had contended that the phrase first appeared in the science fiction book When HARLIE Was One. The other insisted that it was coined by computer scientist Fred Cohen. The former ultimately won out on account of chronology (1972 versus 1983), but Cohen got the nod for the first mention of the term in an academic paper. (Interestingly, it’s been subsequently brought to my attention that the term “computer virus” also popped up in a 1982 issue of The Uncanny X-Men, penned by Chris Claremont.)
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Interestingly, someone also commented that the term “worm” was also born in sci-fi—this time in John Brunner’s 1975 bit of dystopia, The Shockwave Rider. It’s likely not a major revelation to most that a number of well-known tech terms actually originated on the pulpy pages of sci-fi novels.
Science fiction authors often draw on current advances in technology in order to predict the future, and computer developers often read a lot of science fiction. Take, for instance, “cyberspace,” which entered the lexicon by way of William Gibson’s short story “Burning Chrome,” and later his beloved 1984 novel, Neuromancer.
This got us thinking about the origins of other well-known tech terms. Turns out, many were born from far more diverse sources than just the predictions of science fiction authors. In this slideshow, we’ve pointed out familiar terms that were born from comedy sketches, comic books, practical jokes, and children’s stories, and there’s even one that started life as an airport shuttle.