Whether you like him or not, he did a good job on the Jargon File:

http://www.tuxedo.org/~esr/jargon/html/entry/wheel.html

Dave

Ernst du Toit wrote:
> 
> Hi Ed
> 
> Thanks for the redirect - another piece of lore debunked :)
> 
> --et
> Ed Gould wrote:
> >
> > > The version I heard was that the 'wheel bit' was used to describe the
> > > supervisor mode of a certain processor architecture BSD was being ported
> > > too. The idea then kinda stuck to make root part of the supervisor or
> > > wheel group.
> > >
> > > Truth or lore - who knows, it sure sounds nice though :)
> >
> > Definitely false.  This usage of "wheel" dates to Tenex, which long-predates
> > BSD.  Wheel was the Tenex equivalent (more or less) of root.
> >
> >         --Ed