hydraulic engineering. i had this explained to me by an IBM design engineer who designed the externals of computer monitors. it was a bunch of mechanical engineers who designed the symbols in the late 60's/early 70's. the thought of ubiquitous computers and people who understood them was not on their minds. binary 0 and 1 definitely for on and off was not commonplace knowledge then and still isn't.
Herb.... ----- Original Message ----- From: "Keith Whaley" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> Sent: Thursday, February 27, 2003 07:43 Subject: Re: *ist D photos > > Those are not O & I, they are 0 (zero ) and 1 (one). > > zero = off, 1 = on. Very easy. > > JCO > > Hardly intuitive, is it. > In what parlance/language does "1" stand for "on?" Binary? On an A/C > line power switch? > And, if it was meant to be a zero, it should have had the slant bar > thru it, like '0', to avoid just this sort of ambiguity. > Hmmm. The electrical symbol for current is 'I'... > Anyhow, it is a curiosity! > > Most ordinary humans do not think in terms of binary symbols when it > comes to ordinary, everyday items like hardware power switches. My > wall switches, even the toggle or rocker ones, do not have 1 and 0, or > even I and O on them. > > keith >
