OT - Type font question

[Ken Kopp-3]

I've just found and loaded a font with a slashed  "0" into
Windoze ...

Does anyone have experience with non-radio use of a
slashed zero (0)?  Do postal ZIP code readers read it
OK?  Banking?  PayPal?

If anyone wants the font, e-mail me off-reflector and
I'll provide forward it to you.  The plain text requirement
for the reflector "deletes" the slash, but it -IS- here. (:->)

Yes, WAY off topic, but there's LOTS of knowledge
here ..

73! Ken Kopp - K0PP
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or
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[Mark Bayern]

We used a slashed zero on DEC (Digital Equipment Corp.) computers. My
experience with them was from 1966 to about 1975. At the time others
were using a rounded O(letter oh) and a squared 0(zero). I found the
slashed zero much easier to use.

Mark  AD5SS
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[Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO]

Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:

> In the late 1960's some IBM system programmers decided to use the
> solidus (slash) through the letter "O" to differentiate it from the
> simple circle that was used for zero at Sylvania's Electronic Defense
> Laboratories where I worked as a writer.

Ron, I remember that thankfully short-lived experiment, from probably around
1972.  :-)  I worked for a tax company that ran returns in a service bureau
that was all IBM mainframe gear and IBM-trained ops and programmers. For a
while I was rather confused, because I thought EVERYBODY used the slash
through the zero, not through the alpha O -- after all, hams did it that way!
I knew that much! I was told in no uncertain terms that the slash went through
the O, not the zero. But after that one job that year, I never heard of it
again.

Nice to know that IBM didn't successfully dictate everything in the computer
world -- nor does even Microsoft do so today. An idea still has to be a GOOD
idea and have some merit, even if the most meritorious idea doesn't
necessarily win 100% of the time...

Bill W5WVO

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[Doug Faunt N6TQS [phone]]

My recollection was that the slashed letter O was a COBOL thing.

I'd just gotten out of the Navy where I'd learned to slash the number
0, and it was a wrench.

I just looked at one of my 1401 Autocoder books, and it doesn't show
the slashed O (or 0).  Neither does the 7040 MAP book or listing.

73, doug

   From: "Ron D'Eau Claire" <[hidden email]>
   Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 20:29:03 -0800

   In the late 1960's some IBM system programmers decided to use the solidus
   (slash) through the letter "O" to differentiate it from the simple circle
   that was used for zero at Sylvania's Electronic Defense Laboratories where I
   worked as a writer.
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[N5GE]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:06:45 -0700, you wrote:

>Ron D'Eau Claire wrote:
>
>> In the late 1960's some IBM system programmers decided to use the
>> solidus (slash) through the letter "O" to differentiate it from the
>> simple circle that was used for zero at Sylvania's Electronic Defense
>> Laboratories where I worked as a writer.
>
>Ron, I remember that thankfully short-lived experiment, from probably around
>1972.  :-)  I worked for a tax company that ran returns in a service bureau
>that was all IBM mainframe gear and IBM-trained ops and programmers. For a
>while I was rather confused, because I thought EVERYBODY used the slash
>through the zero, not through the alpha O -- after all, hams did it that way!
>I knew that much! I was told in no uncertain terms that the slash went through
>the O, not the zero. But after that one job that year, I never heard of it
>again.
>
>Nice to know that IBM didn't successfully dictate everything in the computer
>world -- nor does even Microsoft do so today. An idea still has to be a GOOD
>idea and have some merit, even if the most meritorious idea doesn't
>necessarily win 100% of the time...
>
>Bill W5WVO
>

[snip]

The last time I used TSO with a green screen, the zero was a zero with a dot in
the middle.  This was at Lockheed Martin in Ft. Worth about two years ago on a
contract.

I seem to remember that in the early 80's at General Dynamics (same place
different name) it was as I described above.

As a high speed radio CW operator in the Army I was trained to slash a circle.
No one said it was a slashed zero or a slashed letter 'O'.  The shape was not
important as long as the slash was there.  We also slashed the letter 'Z' to
distinguish it from the number '2', but as I have seen many times, we did not
slash the number '7'.

Tom, N5GE - SWOT 3537 - Grid EM12jq

"They that can give up essential liberty
to obtain a little temporary safety
deserve neither liberty nor safety."

--Benjamin Franklin 1775


Support the entire Constitution, not
just the parts you like.

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[Ken Kopp-3]

Lots of learning  ... even if trivial ... fallout from
my question about the slashed zero.  I've had a
number of off-reflector requests for the font(s).

BTW, several of them have the zero with a center
dot instead of a slash.

73! Ken Kopp - K0PP
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      or
      [hidden email]

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[daleputnam]

the old model 14, 15, 19, 32, 33 all had slashed zero too.  Very important when reading tape or page printed with a worn ribbon.

--... ...--
Dale - WC7S in Wy



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[daleputnam]

the old model 14, 15, 19, 32, 33 all had slashed zero too.  Very important when reading tape or page printed with a worn ribbon.

--... ...--
Dale - WC7S in Wy



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[k6dgw]

In answer to Ken's question, my guess is that font doesn't matter with
Paypal, banking, or anybody else.  The ASCII codes for zero and the
letter O are different and that's all any confuser cares about.  How it
is rendered on the screen or on paper is not relevant.  Unless of course
the slashed zero is yet another ASCII code?

My first assignment back from Vietnam in 68 was to NASA in Houston
working on Apollo.  We sent our code to the keypunch ops on 80-column
sheets.  The NASA standard was to slash "Oh's" and zeros were not
slashed.  Very hard transition for an AF communications guy.

We did most of our orbital mechanics and guidance analysis work on
Univac 1108's.  The MSC had 5 of them in a huge room with windows in a
second floor hallway as Ron mentioned.  We did some of the numerical
integration stuff on CDC Cyber 175's [??] because the double precision
word length was 128 bits.  The real-time control system for Apollo was 5
[or maybe it was 6] interconnected IBM 360's ... -95 sticks in my mind
but I'm not sure of that.  Only the computer input that we created with
pencil and paper slashed the Oh's.  All the output used the round vs
square font.

73,

Fred K6DGW
- Northern California Contest Club
- CU in the 2008 Cal QSO Party  4-5 Oct 08
- www.cqp.org


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[pa0pje]

Fred Jensen wrote:
> In answer to Ken's question, my guess is that font doesn't matter with
> Paypal, banking, or anybody else.  The ASCII codes for zero and the
> letter O are different and that's all any confuser cares about.  How it
> is rendered on the screen or on paper is not relevant.  Unless of course
> the slashed zero is yet another ASCII code?
>

Well, be it known that there is a slashed O as well, in Nordic
languages. It exists in the extended ASCII code as well, although not
eveyone can read it, depending on what codepage was used.

I know that the TrueType font "Terminal" has the slashed zero an in some
  PSK software you can choose the zero to be slashed or not.

73

Peter, PA0PJE
or PAØPJE (if you have the right character set...:-)

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[Phil Kane-2]

On Fri, 15 Feb 2008 23:06:45 -0700, Bill W5WVO wrote:

> Nice to know that IBM didn't successfully dictate everything in
> the computer world -- nor does even Microsoft do so today.

  In the early 1960s everyone had their own alphanumeric digital
  code.  I was working on Project 465-L, the USAF SAC Command and
  Control System, where the message switch computers were built by
  ITT and used an alphabet called 465-L Field Code.  I was an
  equipment configuration and test engineer but I shared a cubicle
  with Bob Mayer, a system programmer who was a pretty sharp guy.
  A few years later, Bob was asked to sit on a committee called
  the American Standards Committee for Information Interchange.
  The IBM rep was pounding the table for adoption of their EBCDIC
  code and Bob pounded the table for adoption of the 465-L Field Code.

  Bob won.  It's now called "ASCII" after the initials of the
  Committee.

--
   73 de K2ASP - Phil Kane
   Elecraft K2/100   s/n 5402



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[Bill VanAlstyne W5WVO]

EBCDIC!!!  Aaaarrrrgggghhhhhh!!!!!

Back in the early 1970s, some of our online data equipment had to be able to
talk EBCDIC instead of ASCII in order to play nice with IBM systems. I never
did learn EBCDIC; I just hoped and prayed it would go away sooner or later.

It did. Sooner.  :-)

Bill


Phil Kane wrote:
>  The IBM rep was pounding the table for adoption of their EBCDIC
>  code and Bob pounded the table for adoption of the 465-L Field Code.
>  Bob won.  It's now called "ASCII" after the initials of the
>  Committee.

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