[GreenKeys] The Model 33 ASR

[Clay Archer]

I have seen the letter "O" with a horizontal line through it (like the Greek
Theta) in some texts and writing, but only the number zero has had the slash
through it ("0" slashed lower left to upper right) that I have ever seen.  I
always thought it was a British thing or like some parts of the world that
put a horizontal line through the number 7.   Nothing to do with computer
programmers AFAIK.  I have several computer terminals and keyboards from the
60's and 70's, none have a slashed letter "O", they all have a slashed zero.
I thought of the programming language (APL) that used a special keyboard and
symbols.   I just did a search on that and it doesn't have a slashed letter
"O" either.   There was a lot of special fonts developed to aid in early
attempts at OCR, perhaps it was one of those.


-----Original Message-----
From: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net
[mailto:greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net] On Behalf Of dmm at lemur.com
Sent: Sunday, December 01, 2013 3:16 AM
To: greenkeys at mailman.qth.net
Subject: Re: [GreenKeys] The Model 33 ASR


Matters of character representations and codes, especially when
old machines are involved, are something I find fascinating.
So when the "slashed letter 'O'" discussion came up I thought
I'd just find a couple of quick examples to nail down the source.
After all, while I am myself a UNIX-and-C era person, I spent my
entire career hanging out around mainframe system programmers.

But what I quickly discovered is that the subject is both more
complex and less well documented than one might think.
None of the current online references are reliable (perhaps not
a surprise), but beyond that I was unable to find any examples
in my own library of the slashed 'O'.  Most curious. 
It is not simply a matter of "the computer/mainframe/IBM guys did it."

So I did track down some of the earlier references, and some 
examples of practices very much like the slashed letter 'O'.
But I still haven't caught one in the wild.

So (of course) I've written up what little I know and put it online at:

http://www.circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/characters/slashed-o/index.ht
ml

I would welcome comments and criticisms, on-list or off. 

But what I'd really like to find (and add to the writeup, if possible)
are examples of the slashed letter 'O'.   Scans of old coding sheets
or printouts.  Photographs of printer chains, balls, or wheels.
Printer documentation.  Scans of published coding standards recommending 
this practice.  Anything.


Now I just have to repeat a hundred times:

   I do NOT want a Model 26 keypunch.
   I do NOT want a Model 26 keypunch.
   I do NOT want a Model 26 keypunch.
   ...   :-)

Maybe in time I'll believe myself.  We only ever had a Model 29 at work.


Regards,
David M.
===
Dr. David M. MacMillan  -  dmm at lemur.com

   The first rule of intelligent tinkering is to save all the parts.
       - Paul Ehrlich (1854-1915); Aldo Leopold

www.CircuitousRoot.com   *  www.LemurType.com   *  www.Lemur.com


______________________________________________________________
GreenKeys mailing list
Home: http://mailman.qth.net/mailman/listinfo/greenkeys
Help: http://mailman.qth.net/mmfaq.htm
Post: mailto:GreenKeys at mailman.qth.net

2002-to-present greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/pipermail/greenkeys/
1998-to-2001 greenkeys archive:
http://mailman.qth.net/archive/greenkeys/greenkeys.html
Randy Guttery's 2001-to-2009 GreenKeys Search Tool:
http://comcents.com/tty/greenkeyssearch.html

This list hosted by: http://www.qsl.net
Please help support this email list: http://www.qsl.net/donate.html