16 Dec
2010
16 Dec
'10
12:28 p.m.
I'm pretty sure the Micropad OCR gadget (circa 1980) that I once had required
slashing of the letter 'o', with the unslashed version interpreted as a zero.
(and to comment on another thread, I think the 286 Compaq luggable that I had
for a while had a dot in the middle of the zero rather than a slash - I'm not
sure if that was a standard feature or something oddball about my machine)
FWIW, I've just pulled a book off my bookshelf. 'Assembler Language
Programmign, The IBM System/360 and 370', 2nd edition 1975.
It says :
'Note that the letter O (Oh) is written as 0 to distinguish it clearly
from the digit O (sero). We follow this convention in
the description of
any statement or card that is fed to the computer'
So in that book (and presumably in other related manuals/documentation),
the letter gets the slash.
-tony