Re: fortran character set

Phillip Helbig---remove CLOTHES to reply
<helbig@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

In article <1188271167.470173@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, harper@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
(John Harper) writes:

The problem is all the non-dollar currency symbols. Many Americans call
the hash mark or octothorp a pound sign, but it has nothing to do with
currency. If one is is referring to currency, a real pound sign is a
script upper case L with a horizontal line across its middle, in
countries that use or formerly used the pound, e.g. UK, Ireland,
Australia, NZ.

But isn't this just because the pound sign (£) and the number sign (#)
are often on the same key and depending on the environment either one or
the other might be printed? Alternatively, the ASCII code might be
interpreted in a non-standard variant as the pound sign, so if I send
you £ and say it is pound, you might see # and call it the pound sign.

No, that is not why. Those usages predate computers. I didn't bother
trying to track it down, but I'm (moderately) sure that the octothorpe
was called a pound sign when I was a kid. Not that I quite predate
computers, but certainly "ordinary" people wouldn't have been much
influenced by such computer conventions then.

--
Richard Maine | Good judgement comes from experience;
email: last name at domain . net | experience comes from bad judgement.
domain: summertriangle | -- Mark Twain
.

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