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Computing (FOLDOC) dictionary (also found in English - Vietnamese, English - English (Wordnet), )
zero
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1. character 0, ASCI character 48. Numeric zero, as
opposed to the letter "O" (the 15th letter of the English
alphabet). In their unmodified forms they look a lot alike,
and various kluges invented to make them visually distinct
have compounded the confusion.
If your zero is centre-dotted and letter-O is not, or if
letter-O looks almost rectangular but zero looks more like an
American football stood on end (or the reverse), you're
probably looking at a modern character display (though the
dotted zero seems to have originated as an option on IBM3270 controllers). If your zero is slashed but letter-O is
not, you're probably looking at an old-style ASCII graphic
set descended from the default typewheel on the venerable
ASR-33 Teletype (Scandinavians, for whom slashed-O is a
letter, curse this arrangement).
If letter-O has a slash across it and the zero does not, your
display is tuned for a very old convention used at IBM and a
few other early mainframe makers (Scandinavians curse *this*
arrangement even more, because it means two of their letters
collide). Some Burroughs/Unisys equipment displays a zero
with a *reversed* slash. And yet another convention common on
early line printers left zero unornamented but added a tail
or hook to the letter-O so that it resembled an inverted Q or
cursive capital letter-O.