Packet Internet Groper

(ping)

An application which tests to see if a particular computer is available online. An ICMP echo request/reply is used (the similarity of this send/echo to the "ping" of sonar likely gave this function its name and the acronym expansion was then generated to match that).

Ping is often used in different forms but for similar meanings. For example...

• Verb, as in "Ping the Web server to see if it's up."
• Send a message, as in "I just pinged Tom to see if he's in."
• A quantum packet of happiness. It's said that happy people have pings coming from them and you can cheer people up by sending them pings.

The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing, Editor Denis Howe, reports the funniest use of ping as follows...

The funniest use of "ping" was described in January 1991 by Steve Hayman on the Usenet group comp.sys.next. He was trying to isolate a faulty cable segment on a TCP/IP Ethernet hooked up to a NeXT machine, and got tired of having to run back to his console after each cabling tweak to see if the ping packets were getting through. So he used the sound-recording feature on the NeXT, then wrote a script that repeatedly invoked ping, listened for an echo, and played back the recording on each returned packet. Result? A program that caused the machine to repeat, over and over, "Ping ... ping ... ping ..." as long as the network was up. He turned the volume to maximum, ferreted through the building with one ear cocked, and found a faulty tee connector in no time.

More Information

• PING Discussion
• Story of PING