Slashed letter O, unslashed letter zero

Chuck Guzis cclist at sydex.com
Tue Apr 26 13:18:21 CDT 2022


On 4/26/22 10:48, Warner Losh via cctalk wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 26, 2022 at 11:25 AM Shoppa, Tim via cctalk <
> cctalk at classiccmp.org> wrote:
> 
>> This website has a history of slashing the letter O (and also ticked,
>> center-dotted, etc.) oriented around computing:
>> https://circuitousroot.com/artifice/letters/characters/slashed-o/index.html
> 
> 
> Now I understand...
> 
> For me, who started coding in the late 70s, it was always the number 0 that
> was slashed, dotted, or otherwise made to look 'odd', never the letter o.

I recall getting a job back from keypunch with a note attached: "I
wasn't sure if you meant zero or oh (I always slashed my zeroes; the
keypunch form specifically called that out), so I did some of both".

Card deck into trash; go find a keypunch and do the stuff myself.

Management had this diktat that programmers were permitted to punch only
a few cards at a time; the time to punch a full deck cost the company
too much and so should be sent to keypunch.   Obviously, management
never had to work with the output of the keypunch pool...

--Chuck



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