Was it intentional that the Media Control Interface has the same acronym as a telecommunications company?

Raymond Chen

The Media Control Interface is a programmable interface to multimedia peripherals. It’s probably best known for providing an easy way to prank somebody by repeatedly opening and closing the CD tray.

The acronym for the Media Control Interface is MCI, the same initials as a former telecommunications company. Was this a coincidence?

Usually, these things are just coincidences, but this is an exception. The person who came up with the name Media Control Interfaces told me that it was an intentional collision, and that he hoped someday to continue onward and name future multimedia interfaces after other telecommunications companies, such as ITT, GTE, and AT&T.

Fortunately for the rest of us, these other acronyms never materialized.

(Another possibility is that he was just messing with me, and it really was just a coincidence.)

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