But, just as with IBM and NCR, “SRI” is now just a 3-letter non-acronym, that officially doesn’t stand for anything.

Another example: What used to be called the Stanford Linear Accelerator is now officially just "SLAC" (as the university holds trademark for "Stanford" and didn't want to share with the US Department of Energy)

In the old days we used to call community colleges "Junior Colleges." The first time I came out to the valley I noticed a university there called "Leland Stanford Junior University" and assumed it must be a Junior College associated with Stanford University.

So yes, they need all the help they can get with naming things.

I once worked for Digital Switch Corporation, which was well known as DSC. Sometime in the 80s or early 90s they changed their name to DSC Communication Corporation, or DSCCC. If you expanded it all out, you got "Digital Switch Corporation Communication Corporation," the corporation so corporate, they named it twice.

Shame...National Cash Register had so much character. Like the similarly depreciated American Telephone & Telegraph.

I'm reminded how anyone with industrial capacity during war2 was pressed into service making weapons. If you look hard enough, you can find M1 Carbines with IBM and NPR (National Post Register) head-stamps.

They made quite a few of them; the interwebs say something like 365K. I know a guy with 2 IBM manufactured M1s. Even cooler, the Rock-Ola juke box company made M1s.

anymore, you mean. Knowing history is good and so are mnemonics.

My “is now” indeed means “was, but no longer is.” So, no SNAFU; it’s OK.

As predicted I found the information myself in Wikipedia. Of course everbody knows Stanford, although I couldn't tell the difference between the university and the research institute. As an IT person (Xerox) PARC remains the iconic one, even if it was a business failure for Xerox.

Does SRI still stand for "Stanford Research Institute"? I thought it was just an acronym since it separated from the university, as described in your wikipedia link:

> SRI formally separated from Stanford University in 1970 and became known as SRI International in 1977