[gumby]

> It wasn't Wi-Fi, it was AirPort. etc. etc.

FWIW the term “airport” predated the name “wifi” — in those days you had to otherwise call it IEEE 802.11.

And the name as great: people were buying them like crazy and hiding them in the drop ceiling to get around the corporate IT department. A nice echo of how analysts would buy their own apple II + visicalc to…get around corporate IT.

I’m OK with Apple using “apple silicon” as the ARM is only part of it.

Just commenting on your two examples; in general I agree with your point.

[steve1977]

As far as I know, both the AirPort trademark and the term Wi-Fi got introduced in 1999 (could be that AirPort was a couple of weeks earlier)

[gumby]

Airport came out in the beginning of the year, maybe January, at Macworld. WECA renamed themselves the WiFi Alliance a few years later, but the name (and trademark) had to exist for it to be worth them doing so.

WECA reminds me of other "memorable" names of the era, my favorite being PCMCIA, though VESA is another fave.

[steve1977]

Thanks for the info. That was pretty much around the time when I started out in IT. And yes PCMCIA, what a mouthful! I remember Ethernet cards in this format.

[chuckadams]

People Can’t Memorize Computer Industry Acronyms