[TUHS] Tahoe

[Clem Cole via TUHS]

below

On Tue, Dec 9, 2025 at 10:16 AM Cameron Míċeál Tyre via TUHS <tuhs at tuhs.org>
wrote:

> Hello folks,
>
> Illness and work, both at the same time, prevented me from posting this a
> couple of months ago.
>
> I noted, when Apple released macOS 26 three months ago that it was called
> macOS Tahoe and I remembered that there was a processor specific release of
> 4.3 BSD back in 1988 that was officially referred to as "4.3BSD tahoe".
>
The target was Computer Consoles Inc.'s (CCI) Power 6/32 processor, which
was codenamed Tahoe (after Lake Tahoe).

>
> I mention this only because, statistically, the chances of two Unix
> releases being given the same name must be slim, granted they were for
> different reasons, one referring to the platform it was to run on and the
> other because I guess Apple thought it was a nice name?

Different people, although both are named after the same place.

In most (if not all) of the companies I have worked at, project code names
are controlled by the Marketing group.  The first nine releases of Mac OS X
were codenamed after  "Big Cats" [Cheetah 10.0 through Mountain Lion 10.8
]. Starting with 10.9 [Maverick — the famous big-wave surfing spot near
Half Moon Bay], Apple began using physical landmarks in California.

I doubt that the people at Apple picking codenames knew that Lake Tahoe had
already been used in the computer community, either by the CCI or by CRSG's
specific release for the CCI's Power 6/32 (*a.k.a.* Tahoe Processor).

>
>
> I guess it could also be argued they didn't have the same name as one was
> "tahoe" and the other is "Tahoe" or that they did but that one being
> capitalized and one not is how the statistics were defeated.
>
Not really, since both are referring to Lake Tahoe. I suspect
ignorance and indifference
to the previous product name being associated with another processor firm's
product codename.