[TUHS] Slashes

Doug McIlroy doug at cs.dartmouth.edu
Sun Jul 10 10:52:41 AEST 2016


> As far as I know, it [|] has always been used as 'or' on computers.

I was on the NPL (eventually PL/I) committee when IBM 'generously'
increased the 360 character set from 48 to 60. George Radin grabbed
| for OR, before IBM announced the character set. Previously
the customary use for | in logic was the "Scheffer stroke", which 
we now know as NAND. So "always" is ever since it became available. 
Was PL/I the first to adopt it?

Doug



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