On Mon, Aug 13, 2012 at 6:04 AM, Karl Pentzlin <karl-pentz...@acssoft.de>wrote:
> My intent is to get information *why* the character was considered > that important at that time to be included into an 8-bit character set > with its limited space. The problem I am confronted with is that this > character shares its German name "Raute" with the "#", and I have to > consider any historical use of the (real) lozenge when describing > the "#" in a keyboard-related German publication I have to make. > > (The name "Raute" for "#" seems to derive from the International > Telecommunication Union standard ITU-T E.161, which requires the name > "square, or the most commonly used equivalent term in other languages" > for the sign on the lower right corner of 12-key telephone keypads, > which is translated into "Raute" instead of literally "Quadrat". > The term "square" is also used that way in the name of U+2317 > VIEWDATA SQUARE, which is a "straight #" like it is in fact shown on > most telephone keypads.) > This seems strange: # looks nothing like a Raute (=rhombus). If I remember correctly, it was sometimes called "Gatter" or "Lattenzaun". However, I have not used German computers for 16 years... markus
