Pound Sign - Computer Printing From Wordprocessing Packages

Computer Printing From Wordprocessing Packages

In the 1980s the two main standards for the print codes for a pound sign were ASCII 186 for the HP Laserjet and ASCII 156 for most other printers including the IBM Quietwriter and Epson dot matrix printers. In order to print a pound sign each word processor needed to be set up individually to print the sign for the particular printer.

For many wordprocessing packages a terminate and stay resident program (TSR) was needed to convert the code generated by the package into the right code for the printer. Packages such as Wordperfect had utilities to set up this conversion without needing a TSR.

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