0

4 definitions found

0 - Collaborative International Dictionary of English v.0.48 :

  
  
        A dictionary containing a natural history requires too
        many hands, as well as too much time, ever to be hoped
        for.                                        --Locke.
  0 \0\ adj.
     1. indicating the absence of any or all units under
        consideration; -- representing the number zero as an
        Arabic numeral.
  
     Syn: zero
          [WordNet 1.5 +PJC]

0 - WordNet (r) 2.1 (2005) :

  0
      adj 1: indicating the absence of any or all units under
             consideration; "a zero score" [syn: zero, 0]
      n 1: a mathematical element that when added to another number
           yields the same number [syn: zero, 0, nought,
           cipher, cypher]

0 - Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (26 May 2007) :

  zero
  0
  
     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)
  

0 - Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003) :

  0
  
  
     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 center-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 O is a letter,
     curse this arrangement). (Interestingly, the slashed zero long
     predates computers; Florian Cajori's monumental A History of
     Mathematical Notations notes that it was used in the twelfth and
     thirteenth centuries.) 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.
     Old CDC computers rendered letter O as an unbroken oval and 0 as an
     oval broken at upper right and lower left. 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 (this was endorsed by a draft ANSI standard for how
     to draw ASCII characters, but the final standard changed the
     distinguisher to a tick-mark in the upper-left corner). Are we
     sufficiently confused yet?