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Comment by dantiberian | Hacker News Reader

To clarify for people reading, IOS is the name of Cisco's operating system for their router's and network switches. Apple licensed the trademark from Cisco when they switched the naming of their mobile operating system.

http://blogs.cisco.com/news/cisco_and_apple_agreement_on_ios...

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Earth is case-sensitive:

iOS == Apple's mobile OS

IOS == Internetwork OS (Cisco gear)

Further:

Mac == Macintosh

MAC == Media Access Control (Address), common in configuration of Cisco equipment...

Are we sure that "=" and not "==" is the correct operator?

If "==" was appropriate then there would be no problem of ambiguity. And there would be no need for the clarification. Because meanings could never change with context. There could be no "misinterpretation". Only the truth table result of "false".

Which is more important in human communication: case-sensitivity or context-sensitivity?

Human communication is not a computer program.

Confusingly, IBM's mainframes run on the "i" operating system.

i series aren't mainframes, they're midrange, the replacement for the AS/400 platform. Mainframe stuff is z series, a replacement for the System/390 line.

And the official term would be IBM i running on Power Systems. Damn IBM and their ever changing name of the most stable platform available.

If you can't pick it up and throw it out of the window it's a mainframe.

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