Pound sign (was Re: the Telephone Test)

[Sean Malloy]

In article <4080002 at hpopd.HP.COM> apm at hpopd.HP.COM (Andrew Merritt) writes:
>/ hpopd:comp.lang.c / desnoyer at Apple.COM (Peter Desnoyers) /  5:22 pm  May  4, 1989 /
>>The UK has now been metric long enough that some of its citizens have
>>forgotten that there are two types of "pounds" - sterling and
>>avoirdupois.
>Not true: the pound weight is in common daily use in the UK.  We just don't use
>the octothorp character to denote it.  The common denotation of a pound weight
>is 'lb' as in 2lb for 2 pounds.  I thought the octothorp meant 'number' in US
>usage.

The usage of '#' for 'pounds' stems from the early transaction-tape
cash registers, which used adding machine internals for printing the
register tape. The adding machine print hardware was only capable of
printing the numeric digits and a limited selection of other
characters -- add, subtract, multiply, divide, the '#' character to
indicate a total. Because they needed a character to indicate pounds
weight, and the '#' character wasn't being used for anything else, it
was drafted into use as the 'pound character'. Other cash register
manufacturers copied the usage, and it spread into common use.


 Sean Malloy					| "The proton absorbs a photon
 Navy Personnel Research & Development Center	| and emits two morons, a
 San Diego, CA 92152-6800			| lepton, a boson, and a
 malloy at nprdc.navy.mil				| boson's mate. Why did I ever
						| take high-energy physics?"