It are a pome!

[theweaselking]

>> ! * ‘ ‘ #
^ ” ` $ $ -
! * = @ $ _
% * < > ~ # 4
& [ ] . . /
| { , , SYSTEM HALTED

====================

This is very, very, VERY old. And it has a translation, when spoken aloud:

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

Comments

[skiriki.livejournal.com]

Okay, I shouldn't laugh this much when I have a migraine but damn if that wasn't nerdishly funny. :)

[the-trav.livejournal.com]

vertical-bar, surely it has always been pipe?

[secretagentmoof]

It scans better as "vertical" (sans bar), IMHO.

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Depends whether you're putting stuff through it or using it as ASCII-art.

(Same as why "#" is "hash" in the first line and "number" in the fourth - context!)

[silmaril.livejournal.com]

Wow.

Wow. I'm old. And this, this predates me.

(...on the Internets. I got online on the September that never ended, although not through AOL but through the usual September channel, i.e. college. I do not beg forgiveness, and I regret nothing.)

[theweaselking.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I know. I think I first saw this in 1994?

But yeah, I thought of it last night for the first time in forever.

[silveradept]

There's something in my head saying, "Yes, but will it RUN?" And then I realize that I don't know the first thing about scripting or anything else, and that I have no business asking that question...

[rdmasters.livejournal.com]

In TECO it will.

(Showing his age...)

[felisdemens.livejournal.com]

I love this.

[torrain.livejournal.com]

First, much love for finding and posting this again.

Second (and somehow seeming related), did you know that old typewriters didn't have 1s, and occasionally didn't have 0s? The lower-case letter "L" and upper-case "O" were used instead.