Appendix Acronyms B

In the left margin you will find links to the acronyms categorised alphabetically. Some of the pages are quite long and may take a few moments to load if you use a modem.

Acronyms - B

B Book

B8ZS Binary 8 Zero Substitution (see also NRZ, NRZI, AMI)

BA Bachelor of Arts

BACH Business Alliance for Commerce in Hemp

BAFO Best And Final Offer

BARRNet Bay Area Regional Research Network (SF Bay Area)

BASIC Beginner's All-purpose Symbolic Instruction Code

BATSE Burst And Transient Source Experiment (on GRO) [Space]

BB Bases on Balls

BB Best of Breed

BB Bunnies and Burrows

BBA Bachelor of Business Administration

BBB Better Business Bureau

BBC British Broadcasting Corporation

BBL Barrel

BBN Bolt, Beranek, and Newman, Inc. [Corporate name]

BBXRT Broad-Band X-Ray Telescope (ASTRO package) [Space]

BC Battlecars

BC Before Christ

BC British Columbia

BC/BS Blue Cross/Blue Shield

BCD Bad Conduct Discharge

BCD Binary Coded Decimal

BCDIC Binary Coded Decimal Interchange Code

BCE Before the Common Era (substitute for BC)

BCNU Be Seeing You [Net jargon]

BCP Byte Controlled Protocols

BCPL Basic Combined Programming Language

BCS Bachelor of Commercial Science

BCS Binary Compatibility Standard

BCS Boston Computer Society

BCS British Computer Society

BD Bachelor of Divinity

BD Bank Draft

BD Bills Discounted

BD&D Basic Dungeons & Dragons

BDF Binary Distribution Format

BDT Billing Data Transmitter

BE Bill of Exchange

BEF British Expeditionary Force (see AEF)

BELCORE BELL COmmunications REsearch

BEM Bug Eyed Monster

BEM Bug-Eyed Monster [Space]

BENELUX BElgium, NEtherlands, and LUXembourg

BER Bit Error Rate

BERT Bit Error Rate Test

BEST Borland Enhanced Support and Training

BF Brought Forward

BFA Bachelor of Fine Arts

BFD Bristol (RI) Fire Department (probably typical of any town starting "B")

BH Black Hole [Space]

BH Boot Hill

BHP Brake HorsePower

BICS Building Industry Consulting Services [Telephony]

BID Bis In Die (twice a day)

BIMA Berkeley Illinois Maryland Array [Space]

BIOS Basic Input Output System

BIS Business Information System

BISDN Broadband ISDN (q.v.) [Telephony]

BiSync Binary Synchronous Communications (BSC is preferred) [IBM]

Bit BInary digiT

BITNET Because It's Time Network

BLAST BLocked ASynchronous Transmission

BLERT BLock Error Rate Test

BLF Busy Lamp Field [Telephony]

BLT Bacon, Lettuce, and Tomato (sandwich)

BLT BLock Transfer [Instruction]

BLT Branch Less Than [Instruction]

BM Basal Metabolism

BM Bowel Movement

BMA Bank Marketing Association

BMEWS Ballistic Missile Early Warning

BMO Ballistic Missile Office

BMOC Big Man On Campus

BMR Basal Metabolism Rate

BNC Bayonet Neill Concelman (connector) [Electronics] (see also TNC)

BNF Bachus-Naur Form

BO Body Odor

BO Branch Office

BO Buyer's Option

BOC Bell Operating Company

BOD Board Of Directors

BOF Birds Of a Feather

BOM Bill Of Materials

BOOTP Bootstrap Protocol [Internet]

BOQ Bachelor Officers' Quarters

BOS Business Office Supervisor

BOSIX Biin Open System Interface eXtension

BP Blood Pressure

BP British Petroleum

BP British Pharmacopoeia

BPI Bits Per Inch

BPL Boston Public Library

BPL Branch if PLus [Instruction]

BPOE Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks

BPS Bits Per Second

BR Bills Receivable

BR British Rail

BRA Boston Redevelopment Authority

BRI Basic Rate Interface (ISDN) [Telephony]

BRIEF Basic Reconfigurable Interactive Editing Facility

BRL army Ballistic Research Laboratory

BRS Bibliographic Retrieval Service

BS Bachelor of Science

BS Bill of Sale

BSA Birmingham Small Arms

BSA Boy Scouts of America

BSc Bachelor of SCience

BSC Binary Synchronous Communications (also sometimes BiSync) [IBM]

BSD Berkeley Software Distribution

BSN Bachelor of Science in Nursing

BSS Block Started by Symbol

BSTJ Bell System Technical Journal

BT British Telecom

BTAM Basic Telecommunications Access Method [IBM]

BThU British Thermal Unit (BTU {q.v.} is preferred)

BTL Bell Telephone Laboratories

BTO Bachman Turner Overdrive

BTU British Thermal Unit

BTW By The Way [Net jargon]

BU Boston University

BUF B-52 bomber ("Big Ugly Fellow") [USAF]

BV Blessed Virgin

BWI Baltimore-Washington International (airport)

BWI British West Indies

BX Base eXchange (see also PX)