The Register® — Biting the hand that feeds IT

Why XP is the perfect name for Windows

Airforce used it for crash and burn planes

Free whitepaper – Thermal design of Dell PowerEdge server

Whistler and Office 10 will be officially sold as Windows XP and Office XP respectively. XP stands for experience in Microsoft's book, but maybe the US Army Airforce's use of the two letters gives a more appropriate explanation.

The letters XP were used by the US Army Airforce (later USAF) to designate experimental pursuit (fighter) aircraft. If the aircraft was to go into production it would first get the YP designation, followed by the P designation when in production.

According to Reg reader Paul Grayson, aircraft with just the XP designation (such as the XP-55) were unconventional in design, prone to crashing, and generally a waste of R&D.

Click here to see the details of some planes too scary to go into production. ®

Related Link

USA Museum Pursuit Aircraft Virtual Gallery

Related Story

MS confirms Whistler is Windows XP

Free whitepaper – Out-of-box comparison between Dell, HP, and IBM blade servers

Don’t Miss

DustbinDirty, dirty PCs: The X-rated picture guide

Ventblockers Horror beyond human imagination

SC09Top 500 supers - rise of the Linux quad-cores

SC09 Jaguar munches Roadrunner

Ubuntu teaser Early adopters bloodied by Ubuntu's Karmic Koala

Smooth Windows upgrade it ain't

Sign up, sign up for The Register IT security newsletter

Narrowcasting for the email classes