Tape management, IIRC
Most of the core functionality of dd is most useful (and most frequently used) when pulling data from tapes. Given that tape was pretty much Lingua Franca for transferring MF data from the 1970s through the 1990s, and various low-level formatting issues (blocksize, packing factors, buffering, etc., etc.). The syntax was in common enough use, I suppose that it was adopted for Unix when dealing with data originating on Mainframe systems. Not a joke, sorry to say.
Google, as usual, [link|http://www.google.com/search?q=unix+dd+command+history|is useful].
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Karsten M. Self [link|mailto:kmself@ix.netcom.com|kmself@ix.netcom.com]
What part of "gestalt" don't you understand?