As I may have mentioned before our Superb has a personal plate with the first three letters are LOV (lima, oscar, victor) followed by numbers.
Some months ago, probably when it was still on the 'lingo I registered it with WestPark, a system used by West Northants Council to automate payment on various council run car parks.
Mrs B was in town today for an eye test and parked Seoras the Skoda on the main car park for Northampton's shopping precinct.
When she tried to leave the barrier wouldn't open. Eventually, after some wall>head>bang trouble with the guy on the barrier intercom she paid by card and escaped.
Rang the Council to report the problem and it seems entry and exit cameras had rendered the middle O as a numeric zero. While clearly not a legitimate UK number it seems there's no format validation so the system can deal with non UK plates.
Now added Lima Zero Victor variant so hopefully we'll be ok going forward.
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I had this problem in a previous life, when folk would enter the letter 'o' instead of zero into data.
Hexadecimal don't recognise 'o'!
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I had to pay a four figure bill to a new (to me) finance company last week. Their payment reference began IOI01 and the font was not as clearly differentiated between alpha and numeric as it comes out here.
I asked for specific confirmation of receipt.
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Back in the day, when using (computer) coding pads the letter O always got a slash through it (as did Z, S and 7) to clearly differentiate them. I still tend to do that nowadays.
That must date me, as I understand the convention now is to put the slash through the 0 (zero).
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>> That must date me, as I understand the convention now is to put the slash
>> through the 0 (zero).
Hmm as a computer kiddy fron the early 70's and a pocket full of punch cards as a note pad, it was alway slash through the zero, slash through the S, and dash across the 7. Even today its not unknown for Lady Z to get a slap on the wrist from Z technical support for mixing up her Numeric 0 and Alpha O
Last edited by: Zero on Mon 3 Nov 25 at 17:16
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Definitely slash through the letter O for me (SWMBO remembers the same) though my experience (at that time as a user filling in non-programming input pads) dates back to '68.
I'm pretty sure that at the start of the 70's IBM coding practice was the same (though at that time I was using ICL and Honeywell) but changed later.
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Anyone who puts a dash across the 7 is off my Christmas card list - along with anyone saying haitch.
If you say grass instead of grarse, then you can't help it.
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>> If you say grass instead of grarse, then you can't help it.
Grass bath and, phonetically, garridge are my words.
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>> anyone saying haitch.
My English teacher used to screech "there's only one aitch in aitch, A I T C H ,aitch".
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Mate of mine (fellow Yorkshireman) asked the young barmaid in our local (she fancied him) for a glass of coke:
"You do talk funny. It's a glarse of coke."
"No, it's glass."
"Glarse"
"Grass"
"Grarse"
"Fat"
"Ffff.."
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>> Hmm as a computer kiddy fron the early 70's and a pocket full of punch
>> cards as a note pad, it was alway slash through the zero, slash through the
>> S, and dash across the 7. Even today its not unknown for Lady Z to
>> get a slap on the wrist from Z technical support for mixing up her Numeric
>> 0 and Alpha O
Definitely slash through zero for me.
Vague recollection of a problem with a Burroughs computerised legal accounting package dating from the mid eighties where I was able to spot a Zero/Oscar mix up in input that was stopping a payment run.
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I might have doubted myself (but not SWMBO, that's not allowed) but I can find images of Cobol (and Fortran) coding sheets on the web that have the letter O crossed and the number 0 not.
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At BAE when the 0... Zero to you and me was slashed (out of stock) it meant it was an Mod part.
The flying dustbins VC10 tanker conversions. Which reminds me of the time Rolls Royce stuck an RB211 engine onto the back end of a VC10.
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>> Which reminds me of the time Rolls Royce stuck
>> an RB211 engine onto the back end of a VC10.
G-AXLR www.vc10.net/History/Individual/XR809.html
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Number Plate Misread. - bathtub tom
