[GreenKeys] The Model 33 ASR

[Jones, Douglas W]

________________________________________
From: greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net [greenkeys-bounces at mailman.qth.net] on behalf of Christian Gauger-Cosgrove [captainkirk359 at gmail.com]
Sent: Friday, November 29, 2013 4:54 PM

On 29 November 2013 17:17, Don Robert House <62.5milliamps at gmail.com> wrote:
>  We had to change typewheels so that the computer folks could have
> their slash through the letter "O" and ...

Recall that IBM equipment pre 1928 used numerals only, no support for
letters.  When they stole the alphabetic extension from British Tab. Co.
(If I recall correctly), they had trained a generation of users to view O
without a slash as zero.  So, they slashed the new exotic alphabetic
character in order to prevent its being confused with zero.  Their users,
by in large, continued to print primarily numerical data with only
occasional forays into textual data, although by the 1950's when they
began phasing in electronic computers instead of electromechanical
tab-card machines, there was plenty of alphabetic data.  Nonetheless,
they continued slashing their ohs and not their zeros.

Sperry had a competing line of punched card machines that predated
the computer era and may also have done this.  Burroughs, while not
involved with punched cards, was another late 19th century company
that had numbers in their corporate history.

It was the newcomers like HP and Digital that had no reason to copy the
habits of the 19th century computer companies.  They used slashed
zeros because they were after minimum cost, so they didn't make
unneeded changes to their TTYs.  If the slashed zero was good enough
for telcom, it was good enough for them.

               Doug Jones
               jones at cs.uiowa.edu

PS.  Just packed to take home to Iowa some old tube equipment my
dad picked up military surplus.  One transmitter, one receiver, both
very compact -- he didn't recognize them at all when I pulled them out
from over a furnace duct in his basement.  They're not something he
used in the signal corps in the war, but when I get home, I'll try to
transcribe the nameplates to see if anyone here wants the things.
The things look like museum pieces to me, more likely CW than voice,
but who knows.