Telecom/1996-04-telecom-walnutcreek.iso/history/octothorpe.gets.its.name

Text File | 1990-08-12 | 14KB | 428 lines

To: [e-mail]
Subject: Octothorpe source
Date: 19 Nov 88 15:25:08 PST (Sat)
From: ucla-an!bongo![e-mail] (julian macassey)


    I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term
OCTOTHORPE.

    An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to
as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number
symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen
references to it in some Bell docs, I have even seen a news
clipping years ago that mentioned it.

    My problem is that every now and again, some smart Alec asks
me where it comes from. I have even been accused of making it
up. No dictionary I have seen has ever given me a definition.
Yes I have looked it up in the 24 Volume Oxford English
Dictionary. I have checked the encyc Brit and alleged
Telecommunications Dictionaries.

    I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the
word has some roots.

    There is a good term paper here for someone.

Yours Julian Macassey


--
Julian Macassey, n6are       julian@bongo   voice [phone]

------------------------------

To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail] (a.e.mossberg)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 21 Nov 88 14:52:27 GMT



In <[e-mail]>, <ucla-an!bongo![e-mail]> wrote:

>    An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to
>as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number
>symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen
>references to it in some Bell docs, I have even seen a news
>clipping years ago that mentioned it.

Indeed, that's the same place I learned the term, but usually have to revert
to 'number sign' or 'pound sign'.

>    My problem is that every now and again, some smart Alec asks
>me where it comes from. I have even been accused of making it
>up. No dictionary I have seen has ever given me a definition.

Yep, same here.  I've never been able to find it in a dictionary, nor have
I been able to find the original reference from where I learned it.  I was
beginning to think I made it up in some frenzied nightmare. Perhaps Bell
invented it, and then changed their collective mind.

aem

a.e.mossberg    -    [e-mail]    -    [e-mail] (3.91)
Man is here for the sake of other men.            - Albert Einstein

------------------------------

Date: Mon, 21 Nov 88 09:19:28 PST
From: HECTOR MYERSTON <[e-mail]>
Subject: Octothorpe source
To: [e-mail]
Cc: [e-mail]


    All my Bell System references call # The Number Sign (or Pound).
The only times I see it called an Octothrope is in Northern Telecom Inc
publications talking about Digipulse Dialing, "their name" for DTMF.
    The Japanese routinely call it a "Sharp".  Obscure to me, logical
to the musically inclined.

+HECTOR+
-------

To: [e-mail]
From: westmark![e-mail] (Dave Levenson)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 24 Nov 88 00:52:41 GMT



In article <[e-mail]>,(julian macassey) writes:
>
>     I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term
> OCTOTHORPE.
...
>     I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the
> word has some roots.


      # #
      # #
    #######
      # #
    #######
      # #
      # #

Can't you see the eight beams here?

--
Dave Levenson
Westmark, Inc.        The Man in the Mooney
Warren, NJ USA
{rutgers | att}!westmark!dave


TELECOM Digest     Tue, 29 Nov 88  0:23:56 EST    Volume 8 : Issue 187

Today's Topics:

                              Octothorpe
                         re: Octothorpe source
                         Re: Octothorpe source
                    Cordless Phone Recommendations
                 Re: Building your own phone projects
                          off-hook indicator
                   Converting T1 from #5 ESS to Analog

[Moderator's note: It has been a crazy couple of weeks. Jon Solomon has
experimented diligently with various versions of sendmail in an effort to
see to it that each of you receive one copy -- and one copy only -- of
the Digest. Our mailing list was so large the bu-cs send mail apparatus
belched everytime I logged on. We broke the large list down into many
smaller parts. Then, the sun.arpa > sun.com gateway apparently was out
of service for awhile. At least, we audited some copies going to Portal
and found they had sat in the gateway que for two days at a time.

Some machines are still disconnected from the net as a result of the
worm experience, and the end result of all this has been -- I'm almost
ashamed to say -- extremely poor and unreliable delivery of the Digest
since issue 180 until now. We received conflicting reports of delivery
on some issues (like 186), with Mailer-Daemon assuring us the copies had
NOT been delivered, only to remail them and find some of you got THREE
copies, etc.  For any of you where FTP can be used to aquire missing
issues, please use that method. FTP bu-cs.bu.edu and ls telecom-archives.
Then look at the file called telecom-recent. If you cannot FTP, then
let me know, and as time permits I will retransmit individual copies.

We -- jsol and I -- keep thinking this long nightmare is almost over. A
special program has been written to transmit the Digest beginning with
this issue we hope will do the job.             Patrick Townson]
---------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail]
To: [e-mail]
Subject: Octothorpe
Date: Sat, 26-Nov-88 09:52:20 PST


But...a # doesn't have eight beams...only 4...two really if you define
beam as being horizontal...just call it a pound sign...

which, I suppose, refers to some typewriter which have the British pound
sign over the 3...I just call it the number sign...I've also heard
it referred to as a ticktacktoe...

                            [e-mail]

------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (Repent! Godot is coming soon! Repent!)
Date: 28 Nov 88 14:17
To: [e-mail], [e-mail]
Subject: re: Octothorpe source


According to legend, "octothorpe" is a name that the Bell people made
up for the # on the telephone keypad.  I suspect that they couldn't
agree as to whether it was a "pound sign", "sharp", or "number sign"
and eventually compromised (making everyone equally miserable).

Martin Minow
[e-mail]

[Moderator's question: I am wondering if our correspondent is related to
Newton Minow, well known FCC executive. Just curious. P. Townson]

------------------------------

To: [e-mail]
From: Henry Troup <bnr-fos!bnr-public!hwt>
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 22 Nov 88 15:57:48 GMT



In article <[e-mail]> ucla-an!bongo![e-mail] (julian macassey) writes:
>
>    I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term
>OCTOTHORPE.
>
>Julian Macassey, n6are       julian@bongo   voice [phone]

I believe AT&T named the little beastie.  Anyone at AT&T wanted to
claim responsibility?

Henry Troup        utgpu!bnr-vpa!bnr-fos!hwt%bnr-public | BNR is not
Bell-Northern Reseach   hwt@bnr (BITNET/NETNORTH)          | responsible for
Ottawa, Canada        [phone] (Voice)             | my opinions


From [e-mail]  Thu Dec  1 21:43:21 1988
Received: by bu-cs.BU.EDU (4.0/4.7)
    id AA07601; Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:43:21 EST
Message-Id: <[e-mail]>
Date: Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:05:28 EST
From: The Moderator <[e-mail]>
Reply-To: [e-mail]
Subject: TELECOM Digest V8 #190
To: [e-mail]


TELECOM Digest     Thu, 1 Dec 88 21:05:28 EST    Volume 8 : Issue 190

Today's Topics:

              All You Ever Wanted To Know About Octothorpes

[Moderator's Note: This is a just-for-fun special issue of the Digest
with a random sampling of the mail received pertaining to your favorite
touch-pad key and mine, the lowly octothorpe, or #. As is our custom,
we have even provided a rebuttal message from someone who says the #
is not known as an octothorpe at all....

Now can we get this out of our systems once and for all please? Let's
call it quits on the subject of #, by whatever name.  P. Townson]
----------------------------------------------------------------------

From: [e-mail] (L Lang)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 22 Nov 88 15:36:53 GMT
Organization: Bell Communications Research
Lines: 24

In article <[e-mail]>, ucla-an!bongo![e-mail] (julian macassey) writes:
>
>     I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term
> OCTOTHORPE.
>
>     An octothorpe is an # , which is what is usually referred to
> as "the pound sign" or "the hash mark", sometimes as "the number
> symbol". I know the correct term is octothorpe, I have seen
> ...
>     I do know that Octo means eight and Thorpe means beam. So the
> word has some roots.
> ...
> Julian Macassey, n6are       julian@bongo   voice [phone]

When I count "thorpes" (the beams or lines),
I only see four, two vertical and two horizontal.

Perhaps it should be called the QUADROTHORPE.
And does that make the * a TRITHORPE?

Cheers,
Larry Lang




To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail] (Peter Desnoyers)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 30 Nov 88 23:20:40 GMT



Just to provide another point of view:
  from CCITT recommendation E.161 (Arrangement of Figures, Letters and
Symbols of Telephones and other Devices that can be used for Gaining
Access to a Telephone Network) as revised for the Blue Book:

    3.2.2 Symbols
     ...
      [drawings, with angle between horiz. and vert. strokes, length of
    strokes, and length of protruding nubbies labelled alpha, b, and a
    respectively]
      in Europe alpha = 90 degrees with a/b = 0.08 (looks funny to a N.A.ican)
      in North America alpha = 80 deg. with a/b = 0.18
     ...
    The symbol will be known as the square or the most commonly used
    equivalent term in other languages.*
    *... alternate term (e.g. "number sign") may be necessary...

I suppose it's useful to have a translatable term. That approach
worked for "star", but it seems to have failed here. Does anyone refer
to '#' as a "square"? Anywhere? Enquiring minds want to know...

                Peter Desnoyers


To: [e-mail]: [e-mail] (Erik T. Mueller)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 1 Dec 88 19:28:06 GMT



The term "octothorpe" appears in issues of the journal -Telesis- from
the mid to late 1970's published by Bell Northern Research. (Sorry,
I don't have the actual issue numbers handy right now...) I don't know
its origin, but vaguely recall reading somewhere that it was a
Canadian telephony term. As far as I know, the term is/was never used
by AT&T.

-Erik



To: [e-mail]
From: avsd!childers (Richard Childers)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 25 Nov 88 21:25:03 GMT



In article <[e-mail]> ucla-an!bongo![e-mail] (julian macassey) writes:

>    I am looking for an authoritative reference for the term
>OCTOTHORPE. ... ( An octothorpe is an # ... )

Well, this isn't authoritative, it's intuitive, but I _think_ it refers
to the symbol as used on a complex organ's key, for a particular mode.

>Julian Macassey, n6are       julian@bongo   voice [phone]

-- richard


--
 *                Any excuse will serve a tyrant.      -- Aesop               *
 *                                                                            *
 *      ..{amdahl|decwrl|octopus|pyramid|ucbvax}!avsd.UUCP!childers@tycho     *
 *          AMPEX Corporation - Audio-Visual Systems Division, R & D          *


To: comp-dcom-telecom
From: [e-mail] (F. L. Charles Seeger III)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe source
Date: 1 Dec 88 15:42:09 GMT



In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (HECTOR MYERSTON) writes:
|
|    All my Bell System references call # The Number Sign (or Pound).
|The only times I see it called an Octothrope is in Northern Telecom Inc
|publications talking about Digipulse Dialing, "their name" for DTMF.
|    The Japanese routinely call it a "Sharp".  Obscure to me, logical
|to the musically inclined.

I usually refer to as "sharp", but may change to octothorpe -- I sometimes
like to tilt at windmills.  What are the names of the other ASCII special
symbols?  For instance, "&" is an ampersand and "*" an asterisk.  Are
there any fancy (preferrably single word) names for the others?  I.e names
not of the form "* [sign|mark|symbol]".  Does anyone have a reference on
these things, probably a typography reference?

The terms that I use, about which I'm fairly confident:
~  tilde
() [left|right|open|close] parenthesis
[] [left|right|open|close] bracket
{} [left|right|open|close] brace
<> [left|right|open|close] carat
^  circumflex
_  underscore
.  period
,  comma
;  semi-colon
:  colon

What about the following: ? ! @ $ % / \ | + = - ` ' "

If I get responses by Email, I'll summarize in a couple of weeks.
Also, feel free to suggest a more appropriate newsgroup.

--
  Charles Seeger            216 Larsen Hall
  Electrical Engineering    University of Florida
  [e-mail]        Gainesville, FL 32611

[Moderator's inane comment: PUH-LEASE! write direct to Charlie on this; not
to me. I do not give an iota what those things are called! And now, here is
that rebuttal message...]



To: [e-mail]
From: [e-mail] (Ron Natalie)
Subject: Re: Octothorpe
Date: 1 Dec 88 22:15:50 GMT



Nope, # is called pound because it is used as a symbol for
pounds (weight).  I really expect the brits would put the
Pound Sterling where the $ is on a typewriter keyboards.

-Ron


[And there you have it. All the questions you were embarrassed to ask your
Mother Company all nicely summarized for you by the Octothorpe Digest people
in simple, easy to read format you would not be reluctant to share with your
own children when they are old enough to ask the name of that 'funny looking
key below the nine.'

In issue 191, distributed early Friday morning, news of the increase in
network access fees which took effect 12-1-88, and the correspondending
decrease in rates by AT&T, Sprint, and MCI.]

------------------------------

End of TELECOM Digest
*********************