From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: dave at horsfall.org (Dave Horsfall) Date: Mon, 13 Apr 2020 19:01:13 +1000 (EST) Subject: [COFF] On having a slash Message-ID: Way back then, when dinosaurs strode the earth and System/360 reigned supreme, we were taught to slash our zeros and sevens (can't quite find the glyphs for them right now) in order to distinguish them from Oscars and Ones for the benefit of the keypunch girls (yes, really; I had the hots for one of them at one time, but someone else took her) on those green sheets. In the time-mean I also saw a slash through "Z" (Zulu, Zed, Zee) in order to distinguish it from a "2" (FIGURES TWO); WTF? And you *never* slashed your ones, lest thou ended up with the contents of an 029 chad-box over thine head... These days, I merely slash my sevens by habit and it doesn't even raise an eyebrow; even Oz Pigeon Post's mail mangler seems to accept it[*]. What're other bods' experiences? [*] Don't even mention Redfern, OK? Just don't... And as for getting off at Redfern, well, I did a few times when I had a contract job around there. -- Dave, bored at home