zero
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 IBM 3270 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.
[Jargon File]
(1995-01-24)
2. To set to zero. Usually said of small pieces of data, such as bits or words
(especially in the construction "zero out").
3. To erase; to discard all data from. Said of disks and directories, where
"zeroing" need not involve actually writing zeroes throughout the area being
zeroed. One may speak of something being "logically zeroed" rather than being
"physically zeroed".
See scribble.
(1999-02-07)
Nearby terms:
Zermelo Fränkel set theory « Zermelo set theory «
ZERO «
zero » Zero and Add Packed » zero assignment »
zero-content
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