13 Apr
2020
13 Apr
'20
7:23 p.m.
On 13/04/2020, Dave Horsfall <dave(a)horsfall.org> wrote:
Way back then, when dinosaurs strode the earth and
System/360 reigned
supreme, we were taught to slash our zeros and sevens (can't quite find
the glyphs for them right now) in order to distinguish them from Oscars
and Ones for the benefit of the keypunch girls (yes, really; I had the
hots for one of them at one time, but someone else took her) on those
green sheets.
In the time-mean I also saw a slash through "Z" (Zulu, Zed, Zee) in order
to distinguish it from a "2" (FIGURES TWO); WTF?
I have always seen a slashed 7 and Z in European writing (along with
exaggerated serifs on Wons).
For zeroes and oscars, I dimly recall -- or possibly hallucinate --
that some primeval standard specified putting a tail on oscar and
leaving zero alone. A bit of searching turned up nothing, though.
N.