From: "Patrick/VCM SysOp" <patrick(a)vintagecomputermarketplace.com> The period is a convenient substitution for a dot that was used in math to indicate multiplication (the "real" symbol is usually represented as more vertically centered within the character cell). I have some books that also use "x", but that character is again a more (or sometimes less) stylized glyph than the simple upper- or lowercase "X". By the way, that plus (or) symbol in those same books is often a plus inside a circle. So I suspect the use of plain-old-plus is again a convenient substitution into ASCII. Patrick