religion of CHI n. /ki/ [Case Western Reserve University] n. Yet another hackish parody religion (see also {Church of theSubGenius}
, Discordianism). In the mid-70s, the canonical
"Introduction to Programming" courses at CWRU were taught in
Algol, and student exercises were punched on cards and run on a
Univac 1108 system using a homebrew operating system named CHI.
The religion had no doctrines and but one ritual: whenever the
worshipper noted that a digital clock read 11:08, he or she would
recite the phrase "It is 11:08; ABS, ALPHABETIC, ARCSIN, ARCCOS,
ARCTAN." The last five words were the first five functions in the
appropriate chapter of the Algol manual; note the special
pronunciations /obz/ and /ark'sin/ rather than the more common
/ahbz/ and /ark'si:n/. Using an alarm clock to warn of 11:08's
arrival was considered harmful.