Symbol
Traditionally, there was never a single symbol or special character for the Spanish peseta. Common abbreviations were "Pt", "Pta", "Pts" and "Ptas", and even using superior letters: "Ptas".
Common earlier Spanish models of mechanical typewriters had the expression "Pts" on a single type head (₧), as a shorthand intended to fill a single type space (₧) in tables instead of three (Pts).
Later, Spanish models of IBM electric typewriters also included the same type in its repertoire.
When the first IBM PC was designed circa 1980, it included a "peseta symbol" ₧ in the ROM of the Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) and Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) video output cards' hardware, with the code number 158. This original character set chart later became the MS-DOS code page 437.
Some spreadsheet software for PC under MS-DOS, as Lotus 1-2-3, employed this character as the peseta symbol in their Spanish editions.
Subsequent international MS-DOS code pages, like code page 850 and others, deprecated this character in favour of some other national characters, so the "peseta symbol" life was brief.
In order to guarantee the interchange with previous encodings (namely, the code page 437 in this case), the international standard Unicode includes this character as U+20A7 PESETA SIGN in its Currency Symbols block. Other than that, the use of the "peseta symbol" standalone is extremely rare, and has been outdated since the adoption of the euro in Spain.
Read more about this topic: Spanish Peseta
Famous quotes containing the word symbol:
“A symbol is indeed the only possible expression of some invisible essence, a transparent lamp about a spiritual flame; while allegory is one of many possible representations of an embodied thing, or familiar principle, and belongs to fancy and not to imagination: the one is a revelation, the other an amusement.”
—William Butler Yeats (1865–1939)
“The glance is natural magic. The mysterious communication established across a house between two entire strangers, moves all the springs of wonder. The communication by the glance is in the greatest part not subject to the control of the will. It is the bodily symbol of identity with nature. We look into the eyes to know if this other form is another self, and the eyes will not lie, but make a faithful confession what inhabitant is there.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
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—Graham Greene (1904–1991)