[GreenKeys] 120vdc connectors - opinions?

Tue Jun 26 22:14:24 EDT 2018

Keelan,

I think you're absolutely correct about the bulk of the manual being
typeset by a human on a typewriter. Also, there is no actual evidence that
IBM mainframes specifically utilized a slashed O-- at least there's none I
know of. The Wikipedia article in question has nothing to go on by stating
IBM, and I regret paraphrasing that bit.

The code examples, however, don't appear to be O characters with a slash
overstrike to me-- they look like the regular slashed zero common in
teleprinters as they don't suffer from the floating slash on the O like in
the likely typewritten bulk of the manual. It's even possible that whatever
system this was was programmed to print out a slashed zero for every O and
could have used any common teleprinter of the day.

Whether this means it was IBM or some forgotten manufacturer/programmer
swapped the slashed zero for O in I/O printouts is uncertain (probably the
latter if anything), but to me this is indicative that some system
somewhere utilized slashed O characters. Either that or someone in the 60s
went through a LOT of effort for no reason to create a manual with code
examples where every O is a slashed O.

Regardless of the truth behind this mystery (I'd be interested to validate
it at some point), it's still apparent that computer systems utilizing a
slashed O, if they really existed beyond a university's frankenstein
system, are about as far away from the rule as possible.

--Jordan

On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 7:34 PM, <keelan at beefchicken.com> wrote:

> Regarding the IBM claim in Wikipedia, I will copy-paste my response to
> another greenkeyer that contacted me off-list about this:
>
> Take the Wikipedia article with a grain of salt: the reference that the
> article uses to back up its IBM claim is tenuous at best: a BASIC manual
> written at Dartmouth in 1964. Yes, the linked manual uses slashed letter Os
> in all code examples, but the manual was also most likely typewritten, and
> contains numerous mathematical symbols [and underlines] added with pen. The
> slashed Os appear to be the result of an overstrike operation, rather than
> as a directly printed character.
>
> Further to the above, the document in question was produced in 1964. It
> has straight quotes, double hyphens for em-dashes and clumsy hyphenation;
> any typesetter worth his salt would quit drinking before committing those
> crimes. It appears to have proportional letter spacing, which rules out bog
> standard typewriters. That leaves us with more elaborate machines such as
> the Varityper and IBM Executive Selectric. The Selectric's font repertoire
> is definitely more "utilitarian" (hideous) than Varityper's offerings, so
> I'm inclined to say this was produced on a Selectric.
>
> Oh, and the final nail in the coffin: If you look at a number of examples
> of slashed Os in the aforementioned manual, you'll notice that the '/'
> wanders around on the 'O'. It's never in the same place twice. Either they
> had an entire font full of varieties of slashed Os, or this is smoking gun
> that this document was set by a human on a typewriter.
>
> - Keelan
>
>
> June 26, 2018 4:58 PM, "Jordan Spencer Cunningham" <js at cunni.co
> <%22Jordan%20Spencer%20Cunningham%22%20%3Cjs at cunni.co%3E>> wrote:
>
> Also a computer person here, and I've never seen a slashed O representing
> Oh, only ever slashed zeroes or plain zeroes representing zero, even on all
> the older computers I've worked with where standards were more inconsistent.
> That being said, I have read that some mainframe manufacturers including
> IBM did utilize the slashed O to represent Oh but later flipped it to
> represent zero when they came to their senses. You can see an example of
> this in some of the commands listed in this old BASIC manual:
> http://www.mirrorservice.org/sites/www.bitsavers.org/pdf/
> dartmouth/BASIC_Oct64.pdf (e.g. FØR X = 1 TØ 100). The funny thing is
> that these mainframes were most likely all using some kind of teleprinter
> as a terminal; I am not aware of a printer that used slashed O for Oh, but
> then I'm not so familiar with the later machines from the 60s/70s. IBM did
> manufacture some teleprinters or teleprinter-like machines, though, so they
> could have easily selected their own typeface that way.
> Backslashes are often a bit of a pain, though they have their purpose if
> you're escaping a special character in code or scripts (I've used more than
> my fair share of backslashes in sed commands). I suppose I can think of
> debatably better methodologies for escaping or avoiding having to escape in
> the first place by better language/interpreter design, but backslash
> escaping is too entrenched now and will probably haunt us for another
> century. Windows, of course, has completely abused the backslash by
> utilizing it as a delimiter in path structures when the rest of the sane
> world uses forward slashes as God intended.
> --Jordan
> On Tue, Jun 26, 2018 at 3:28 PM, <keelan at beefchicken.com> wrote:
>
> Computer person here,
>
> In all my years, I have never seen a slashed O represent anything but a 0.
>
> But, don't get me started on the back slash: '\', which is without-a-doubt
> the most infuriating invention of the computer universe. I can only imagine
> that the inventors of the back slash were all sitting around the exhaust of
> a diesel backup generator of one of their computers, and were suffering
> from the deleterious effects of carbon monoxide poisoning when that
> atrocity of a glyph was invented. It manages to be both confusing and
> redundant at the same time.
>
> - Keelan
>
>
> June 26, 2018 2:14 PM, "Richard Knoppow" <1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com> wrote:
>
> > Those of us that grew up with Morse code are familiar with
> > using an 0 with a slash through it for zero and a plain O for the
> > letter Oh. The computer people do this backward with the slashed
> > symbol for Oh and the plain one for zero. I've found many
> > instances where the computer folks use a well established term
> > for something completely different. I think they all live in a
> > parallel universe.
> >
> > On 6/25/2018 10:51 PM, Paul Birkel wrote:
> >
> >> Indeed. I learned the nomenclature backwards, courtesy of DEC
> >> circa 1972. Took more than 40 years to set me straight :->.
> >
> > --
> > Richard Knoppow
> > 1oldlens1 at ix.netcom.com
> > WB6KBL
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