Googling in the usenet groups gives me http://www.google.nl/groups?selm=4hcg3g%24gn4%40Starbase.NeoSoft.COM&oe=UTF-8&output=gplain as the oldest reference. It's attributed to Dale Kirby. The referred to URL, http://pubs.iworld.com/wd-online/spring96/duke.html appears to be stale.

The usenet posting dates March 3, 1996.

Abigail