From mboxrd@z Thu Jan  1 00:00:00 1970
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From: mfeldman@seas.gwu.edu (Michael Feldman)
Subject: Re: the term "pound sign" (was: help: character to integer)
Date: 1996/10/09
Message-ID: <53gged$oqi@felix.seas.gwu.edu>#1/1
X-Deja-AN: 188272286
references: <52t8la$2l8@goanna.cs.rmit.edu.au> <3252BEC8.529E@lmco.com>
 <dewar.844516356@schonberg> <53blbk$6va@krusty.irvine.com>
organization: George Washington University
newsgroups: comp.lang.ada
Date: 1996-10-09T00:00:00+00:00
List-Id: <comp.lang.ada>


In article <53blbk$6va@krusty.irvine.com>,
Adam Beneschan <adam@irvine.com> wrote:

>pound    lb or lb avdp also #    16 ounces, 7000 grains        0.454 kilogram

>probably indicating that the use of the term "pound sign" for # did
>not arise from an accident of the ASCII chart.  It seems more likely
>to me that the common names for the two symbols led the character-code
>designers to give them the same ASCII code, not the other way around.
>Anyone have any definitive information that would settle this question
>of the utmost importance?

Way back in my high school and undergraduate days (hmmm - 1958-66),
we routinely used # in physics classes to represent pounds. That was
definitely before ASCII. 

Mike Feldman
(gray and aging pedant)