Darren Provine at Rowan University

Why Is This Computer Named Elvis?

This question comes up every so often, and here's the official answer. The reason I can give the official answer is that I'm the one who suggested the name.

In July of 1993, Bruce Klein (Rowan's Omnibenevolent Network Administrator) put out a request for names for a new computer. I replied with a number of suggestions, going with the then-prevailing `mythical beings' motif (Saturn, Isis, and so on). Four days later I posted, as an afterthought, the following:

  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------
  Newsgroups: gsc.q_and_a
  From:    kilroy@gboro.rowan.edu (Dr Nancy's Sweetie)
  Subject: Re: Suggestions?
  Date:    Mon, 26 Jul 1993 01:24:05 GMT
  Summary: One More!
  Keywords: names, appropriate, `Woof!'
  Disclaimer: Brandy the WonderDog likes this idea.


  There is a program called `ping', which tells you if machines are
  running.  You can type `ping saturn', and it will say "saturn is alive".

  SO, since he has almost gotten demigod status anyway, I think we
  should name the new computer `elvis'.  That way, we can say
  `ping elvis', and the computer will tell us what we all so long to
  hear, "elvis is alive".


  Darren F Provine / kilroy@gboro.rowan.edu
  "Where a calculator on the ENIAC is equipped with 18,000 vacuum tubes and
   weighs 30 tons, computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes
   and weigh only 1 1/2 tons." -- Popular Mechanics, March 1949
  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------

Way back when, all my posts to Usenet (even local groups such as `gsc.q_and_a') included a disclaimer to the effect that the article was actually written by my dog, Brandy. This sort of became a standing joke, and I once got e-mail lamenting a post which didn't have some reference to Brandy the WonderDog in it. (The local group was called `gsc.q_and_a' because it originated when we were still `Glassboro State College'. Alas, local newsgroups seem to have died on campus. Too bad.)

Anyway, the computer in question was eventually named `Mars', as it turns out that the computer Saturn was named for the planet, not the deity. Just as well, because that computer ended up running Novell Netware, and nobody could actually log on or use it for anything.

But when we got our first Silicon Graphics machine in December 1993, it was named `elvis.rowan.edu'. That first machine was an R4400, and was in service until late 1995. It eventually got moved to a desktop, and the name "elvis" was assigned to an SGI Challenge S.

In 1998, that machine was replaced with an SGI Origin 2000.

In August of 2002, Elvis was incarnated as a Sun E450.

In August of 2007, the venerable E450 was upgraded to a Sun V480R, which continues to serve as Elvis.

Elvis: Rex Quondam Rexque Futurus!