John Wilcock wrote: > On Thu, 18 Dec 2003 09:30:42 -0500, John Cowan wrote: > > In this case, it's logicians who use U+00AC for "not", or at least > > some of them. It got into EBCDIC, I don't know exactly how, and from > > there into ISO 8859-1. > > Wasn't it used for that purpose in APL?
When I learned to program APL in the early 80's, it was on a TRS-80, and it required a supplementary ROM font to support the various mathematical symbols, and the APL interpret was also using its own keyboard layout and input method. The NOT SIGN was not mapped where you think it was, because the TRS-80 English or French keyboard did have this keycap (the keyboard was nearer from old VT terminals, and derived from CPM terminals, because the TRS-80 used CPM-80 as its background OS). Instead, the character was composed within the APL interpret, using the MINUS SIGN keyb on either the US or French keyboard layout... I really doubt that the NOT SIGN was added to the International English keyboard for APL, given that APL needs much more symbols than just this one. In fact the International US keyboard is born long after APL was developped and used with standard national keyboards. As the APL interprets have continued to support their own input methods, there was no need to map this symbol on keyboards, even if APL interprets have been modified later to support this key position on international English keyboards. Even today, I can write APL programs on Windows with my French keyboard using the input method editor which is built in the shipped APL environment. __________________________________________________________________ << ella for Spam Control >> has removed Spam messages and set aside Newsletters for me You can use it too - and it's FREE! http://www.ellaforspam.com
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