;login: is a long-running bi-monthly technical journal published by the USENIX

USENIX

-External links:* *...

 Association, focusing on the UNIX

Unix

Unix is a multitasking, multi-user computer operating system originally developed in 1969 by a group of AT&T employees at Bell Labs, including Ken Thompson, Dennis Ritchie, Brian Kernighan, Douglas McIlroy, and Joe Ossanna...

 operating system

Operating system

An operating system is a set of programs that manage computer hardware resources and provide common services for application software. The operating system is the most important type of system software in a computer system...

. It was founded by Mel Ferentz in 1975 as UNIX News, changing its name to ;login: in 1978.

The leading semicolon

Semicolon

The semicolon is a punctuation mark with several uses. The Italian printer Aldus Manutius the Elder established the practice of using the semicolon to separate words of opposed meaning and to indicate interdependent statements. "The first printed semicolon was the work of ... Aldus Manutius"...

 is a reference to the appearance of the login

Login

Login is the method whereby a user obtains access to a computer system.Login may also refer to:*Magazines:** LOGiN, published by Enterbrain** ;login:, published by USENIX* Login, Carmarthenshire, an hamlet in Carmarthenshire...

 prompt of early versions of UNIX, where an escape code specific to the Teletype model 37 computer terminal

Computer terminal

A computer terminal is an electronic or electromechanical hardware device that is used for entering data into, and displaying data from, a computer or a computing system...

would appear as a semicolon on other models of terminal.

External links

• ;login: - The USENIX Magazine