SEX (computing)
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- The acronym SEX redirects here. For other meanings, see Sex (disambiguation).
The "SEX" assembly language mnemonic is often used for the "Sign EXtend" machine instruction found in the PDP-11 and many other computer architectures.
The RCA 1802 chip used in the early ELF and ELF II microcomputers had a "SEt X register" instruction, but this seems to have had little folkloristic impact, probably because of the 1802's very low market share in the general microcomputer field.
DEC's engineers nearly got a PDP-11 assembler that used the SEX mnemonic out the door at one time, but their marketing department forced them to change it before release.
The author of The Intel 8086 Primer, who was one of the original designers of the Intel 8086, noted that there was originally a SEX instruction on that processor, too. He says that Intel management got cold feet and decreed that it be changed, and thus the instruction was renamed CBW and CWD (depending on what was being extended). The Intel 8048 microcontroller (used e.g. in the original IBM PC keyboard) is also missing straight SEX but has logical-or and logical-and instructions ORL and ANL.
The Motorola 6809, used in Radio Shack's TRS-80 Color Computer and UK's Dragon 32/64 home/personal computers, actually had an official SEX instruction; the 6502 in the Apple II and the Commodore VIC-20 with which it competed did not. British hackers thought this made perfect mythic sense; after all, it was commonly observed, you could (on some theoretical level) have sex with a dragon, but you can't have sex with an apple.
SEX in software
The TLA SEX have humorously been said to stand for Software EXchange, meaning copying of software. As illegal copying (software piracy) has sometimes lead to the spread of computer viruses, it has been stated that "illicit SEX can transmit viral diseases to your computer".