"half-dollar"/"50 cent piece" Was: Recovering the ROM of an IBM 5100 using OCR

[Liam Proven]

On Sat, 29 Jun 2019 at 15:57, Fred Cisin via cctalk
<cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
>
> USA makes a pretense of accommodating disabilities, but is actually pretty
> hostile to the disabled.

:-(

> The "new" paper currency, that is s'posedly good for blind people has
> slightly different shades of the same colors.

(!)

I googled pictures. Amazing.

I am reminded of a famed quote from TV snooker commentator Ted Lowe,
describing a position of the balls on the table:

"Steve is going for the pink ball - and for those of you who are
watching in black and white, the pink is next to the green."

Snooker is a cue/ball game a bit like pool but much harder and on a
far bigger table: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snooker

> A "Dime" is one tenth of a dollar.  Or ten cents.  Or $10 worth of drugs.
> The coin is 17.91mm diameter, and the smallest coin in circulation.
>
> A "Nickel" is five cents.  or $5 worth of drugs.
> The coin is 21.21mm, and is between a penny and a quarter in size.

I'm broadly aware but I can never remember which is 5¢ and which is 10¢.

Thanks for the info on drug purchasing, in case I ever need that. :-D

> "Silver Dollar pancakes" are actually larger than a silver dollar, but
> nobody complains.

:-D

> Pennies used to be copper.  Now, they are mostly zinc, due to copper
> costing more than a penny.  But, they managed to maintain the copper
> color.  During WW2, pennies were briefly made out of steel.

I think many "copper" or "brass" coins around the world now are steel
with a coating -- it's cheaper.

> Our parent country taught us to make currency weird, and we have carried
> on the tradition.

Yeah, but we reformed and decimalised it all about 50y ago, and now,
as an olde pharte, all the old units and multiples are arcane and
weird even to me. I have only the dimmest memories of seeing shillings
and things like that. I barely understand feet and inches and don't
really grasp pounds, ounces and so on at all. I have never used
Fahrenheit.

I recently bought Dr Spock's famed baby book and have discovered to my
dismay that all the units in it are incomprehensible. :-(

-- 
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