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I would think more people would know what THAC0 is over GURPS.
I miss GURPS.
In 2023? I don't think so. I got into D&D decades ago and THAC0 was already not a thing anymore. Gurps may not be widely played today but I still see it getting memed a lot for being complicated.
I still see THAC0 memes too, though. I may be biased since I was around when THAC0 came out.
I'm very new to DnD (started as a DM a couple weeks ago), heard of gurps because of fallout message boards, no idea what THAC0 is.
GURPS is such a great system. A lot of rules, but they all make sense, and it's so flexible.
THAC0 (To Hit Armor Class 0) was an attempt to simplify combat in earlier editions. Before then, each class had a table they had to refer to to know what they had to roll to hit a particular armor class. It's much simpler in 5e.
Jumping from AD&D 2e to 5e was such q trip, not being able to triple class confused the hell out of me
In addition to other great information here about THACO, it's worth highlighting that it was upside-down.
Lower rolls were better.
This led to magic items giving both pluses and (good) minuses in order to remain consistent in world. Also some curses and ailments gave (bad) pluses to certain rolls.
It was wildly unintuitive.