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Archive 1

History, DOS

Before computers, there was only the backslash "/" (err wot!?). This was commonly used in math formulas to represent division. It is called a backslash because it is usually made with a back motion, starting at its top and pulled down and back. Occasionally it was simply called a slash.

Along comes computers and DOS. Needing another character, Microsoft invented the forward slash "\", for help in defining pathnames. This is made by starting at the top and pushing down and forward to complete the character. It is amazing to see how the English language has changed itself to switch the naming of this symbol. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 24.217.240.94 (talk) 22:00, 7 September 2003 (UTC)

  • I'm sorry, but that sounds completely false.193.167.132.66 10:53, 15 Feb 2005 (UTC)
Can you (or anyone) provide a source for this information? —Frungi 23:12, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
  • I've heard this explanation before, and my problem with it is this: while most people probably write the characters in this manner, not necessarily everyone does. But more importantly, English is read from left to right, thus a slash which leans to the right is seen as falling forward, just as italic type appears to be pushing ahead by leaning to the right. --Birdhombre 16:21, 19 December 2005 (UTC)

Yeah I agree, backslash is taken to be '\' and forward slash is '/'. Also doesn't DOS use the basic ASCII character set, which would have contained both slashes anyway. (unless it works on that microsoft persistent crap). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.205.110.54 (talk) 07:46, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

  • For the record, both the forward slash / (formally, solidus) and the backslash \ (formally, reverse solidus) have been around for a very long time. As noted at the backslash article, the backslash was being used with morse code since at least 1935, though (unlike the forward slash, which is) it is not a standard morse code symbol. The backslash was still rarely used until Microsoft began using it as directory separator with MsDos, essentially because it was unlikely to be used in any file names. (The military love to have lots of slashes in file names.) --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:38, 19 January 2022 (UTC)
This is incorrect, Microsoft also made the slash into a directory separator, they were not trying to allow it's use in filenames. The reason for the backslash was to avoid the use of forward slash to introduce switches to command line functions (like "dir/w" to do what in Unix might be written as "dir -w").Spitzak (talk) 18:20, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

Keyboard?

The Backslash is "Alt + ???" ? --201.11.244.47 05:07, 15 Apr 2005 (UTC)

Alt? No, it’s the key above Enter. —Frungi 23:09, 29 August 2005 (UTC)
Both of you are correct - on the US keyboard layout it's the key above enter, while on a German keyboard it's "Alt Gr + ß", for example. --Abdull 16:31, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

On the British keyboard (ahem where qwerty was invented, and also the keyboard for that matter) its next to left shift. Weird that...

Added comment: Sorry, but you have it backwards! Please see <http://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Backslash>

[/] is a (forward) slash, also called a solidus, fraction bar, or virgule. I'd say any good dictionary would confirm that. BBC World Service announcers always call it a forward slash. [\] is a backslash, also called a reverse solidus. (Try the Unicode book; it's online.) Your explanations for why you named them that way are clever, but those are not the reasons. Just about positive that the late Bob Bemer, of IBM, invented the backslash, years before Microsoft. IIrc, he also invented the Esc key. Try Googling (or this Wikipedia!)for his name. (I spelled it correctly.) -- nb

The character must have been used before this, because it was on the programmer's keyboards! So, what was this character used for before then??? -- winjer

How annoying is it when they say "h t t p colon backslash backslash website dot com backslash index dot html" on TV. I've heard it on no less than 5 occasions, I'm happy to see I'm correct, it's a slash, damnit! --WAZAAAA 23:18, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

"The backslash's prominence in Microsoft Windows' directory names has even led to its erroneous placement in contexts not relating to directories, or computers at all, for that matter. For example, people might write about an "African\American ancestry"."

I think this has nothing to do with computers or Windows, it's just because people don't know which way to write a slash. Also it's unsourced / unverifiable / original research / whatever. Jibjibjib 02:41, 22 December 2006 (UTC)

This is a really useful article! (Is there a feedback / rating system for articles?)

An easy way to remember which slash is called what (even though no one calls it by the correct name) is if you start at the bottom, which way do you draw the line? Forward or backward?

RE the incorrect usage...

It seems obvious to me the reasons why people get the "names" muddled:

A slash that leans forward, is a forward slash / . But it is written backwards (write one now, top right back to bottom left) hence the reason people call it a backslash (incorrectly). A backslash has the opposite properties, (ie leans back but is written forwards).

It may be dangerously close to O.R. but i suggest including something refering to the above to explain things a little better maybe? 217.33.134.118 (talk) 15:05, 5 February 2008 (UTC)

I very much doubt the above. There are no references to "forward" slash in any documentation before the appearance of backslashes in MSDOS. Also I have never seen the forward slash called "backslash" except in the context of URL's being mis-read. An example is English dates, the same people who will say "backslash" in a URL will say "slash" when reading a 1/2/33 type date. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Spitzak (talk • contribs) 18:17, 10 March 2008 (UTC)

  • Well, I'm one of those who blames the creators instead of the users. You all seem agreed that originally there was just the slash (/) used in handwriting. Later, computer programmers invented the name "backslash" for an inverted symbol (\) because it's top is further back than it's bottom. That's how things happened, and there's nothing anyone can do about it. However, this is completely counter-intuitive to anyone making the slash in handwriting... and there's nothing anyone can do about that, either. That's because, as has been noted here, the vast majority of people who make the standard slash in writing (or, arguably, all of them) will begin at the top and move backward. Likewise, those who make the other type of slash will begin at the top and move forward. It has to do with hand muscles, of course, but it also involves the fact that people read from top to bottom, as well as left to right. For illustration, imagine if there had originally only been the colon (:) in punctuation, and computer programing began implementing a symbol they called the "doublecolon" (;). For the old colon, they would distinguish it with the phrase "single colon" (:). You'd imagine if there were a few cases of misuse or misunderstanding in this scenario. Of course, this is all leaps of original research. I haven't found any web sites that try to rationalize why the slashes are mistaken with each other so often, though there are several that express frustration with the "retards" who make the mistakes. -BaronGrackle (talk) 21:37, 17 April 2008 (UTC)

Change

I changed "Unix-affiliated programming languages" to "many programming languages". A programming language need not be affiliated with UNIX to use the backslash as an escape character. However, it could possibly be argued that programming languages that are patterned after C use this technique. Notbyworks 18:13, 21 March 2007 (UTC)

Backslash invention/introduction

The Bob Bemer article only says that he introduced the backslash to the computer world. The backslash article rather sounds as if he is the one who invented it. Maybe someone can give good verifications? --Abdull 16:35, 15 April 2007 (UTC)

In this article, Bob Bemer claims to have invented the backslash character independently of prior use, the rationale being its symmetry with forward slash making it suitable for compsing the \/ and /\ operators for Algol, of which he was apparently a fan at the time. --Dolda2000 (talk) 14:23, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
Re-invented? See 'History' section of the article, which gives the first use we have found to date (TTY Corp, 1937) and also mentions Bemer (when working for IBM) having got it made part of ASCII. Any citable improvements on the 1937 date will always be welcome! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 14:55, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

Proper name

Its name
The proper name for a forward slash is an 'oblique', so the proper name for a backslash is a 'reverse oblique'. Please tell me the writer is not American, u cant go assuming there's no set name for something because you haven't heard it silly... the british however have a very defined set of names for symbols. for example '[' is a left bracket, ']' is a right bracket, '(' is a left parenthesis, ')' is a right parenthesis, and together they are called parentheses. '~' is a tilde. '@' is the ampersat, '&' is the ampersand, '^' is the caret, '£' is the pound sign. '*' is asterisk. '_' underscore, '#' is hash symbol, not the square symbol etc.... —Preceding unsigned comment added by 217.205.110.54 (talk) 07:51, 8 October 2007 (UTC)

Colloquialism: Whack

The inclusion of 'Whack' as a incorrect colloquialism is a little misleading. The referenced link and the article itself points out - this is used for the [forward]slash. Is this worth retaining as the Slash_(punctuation) article doesn't even mention 'whack' as a correct usage? JudasD 10:47, 5 November 2007 (UTC)

Incorrect according to what authority? It actually is referred to as a 'whack' in the ASCII ref. Googling the two terms will find numerous references. At Microsoft it's the common term for a backslash, as a short. It's a short, one-syllable synonym for a common symbol in (MS) computing, along the lines of star, bang, and hat. Bennetto (talk) 06:27, 2 October 2009 (UTC)

Slosh 1, British Columbia et al.

Just serving notice that the Slosh redirect will eventually target the St'at'imc village in Seton Portage, British Columbia; or to Slosh (disambiguation). Slosh 1, British Columbia and Slosh 1A, British Columbia are somewhat different, as Slosh 1 (a Wiki abbreviation derived from StatsCan's census monickers) refers to a larger area than Slosh village, and is primarily about Shalalth; Sosh 1A can be a redirect to Slosh 1, but there will be at least two other Slosh entries than the redirect that currently leads here.Skookum1 (talk) 15:03, 9 September 2008 (UTC)

"Double colon" would be written as "::" That was a poor example. We are not saying slash and double slash. We are not saying slash and semi slash.

slash = /

If clarity is needed, just say "The symbol used when writing the day, month and year.

˜˜˜˜ —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.119.78.195 (talk) 12:49, 26 November 2009 (UTC)

Different countries write the date differently. - dcljr (talk) 00:45, 14 April 2010 (UTC)

Incorrect Usage

Seems like lately I hear (mostly on radio) people referring to URLs including a backslash (which is obviously incorrect). Is there a way we can highlight this in the article, either drawing attention to the incorrect usage or highlighting further that URLs almost exclusively contain slashes and not backslashes? I would hate for this trend to continue as it causes a lot of confusion. The average joe will never use the backslash character in their lifetime. It's primarily reserved for us programmers. CydeSwype

god i cant believe i used the word in this way. i think i was trying to fit in, as i knew it was wrong.Mercurywoodrose (talk) 02:46, 20 April 2010 (UTC)
I could not agree more. Some mention of the common misuse, in verbal readings of URLs, of slashes being called "backslash" is relevant to the article. Ewicky (talk) 20:38, 11 October 2013 (UTC)

use in grammar

HOW IS THIS USED IN GRAMMAR??????????????????????????????????????????

24.5.122.245 (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC) →§·←≥÷≥≈ 24.5.122.245 (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC) 24.5.122.245 (talk) 23:19, 9 April 2014 (UTC)

As far as I know, it isn't. --Nigelj (talk) 15:42, 15 May 2015 (UTC)


Ummm? don't you use it in these situations? coffee w/ cream? African/American

w/o = without w/ = with c/o = care of (used when posting a letter or parcel) a/c = air conditioning

Technically / is not a forward or backward slash it is just a slash. \ is a "backward" slash or backslash.

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History

/ was called backslash because of the way it is made and was called the backslash in the days of typewriters. Going back and getting a call out of the typewriter keys from keyboards on the older typewriters will show the / key and call it out as the backslash key and as the slash key. I and all others of my age 68 learned to type on a typewriter in high school and when learning the keyboard the / was called in class the backslash. I also went on to become a typewriter repair tech for IBM in the early 70s and it was called the backslash key by them. The \ did not exist until computers came along. When I took DOS back in the dark ages the \ key was referred to as the forward slash. These designations have changed with later programmers having no knowledge of the typewriter keyboard or of the history of the /key other than as it pertained to programing. They started referring to the / key as the forward slash key or the slash key which it now is by default. The reason for the confusion is that all of us oldsters, I'm 68, grew up before a lot of programing was being done, used typewriters, and knew the / key as the backslash. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tegratech (talk • contribs) 01:58, 15 May 2015 (UTC)

@Tegratech: Well, we don't have any reliable sources that confirm this, so we can't use this anecdotal claim in the article. PS: New posts go at the bottom of the talk page, and please remember to sign your posts with ~~~~  — SMcCandlish ☏ ¢ >ʌⱷ҅ᴥⱷʌ<  03:12, 10 November 2017 (UTC)
@Tegratech: I have a keyboarded telegraph from 1945 with both / and \ so they must predate the computerTadfafty (talk) 07:48, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

Tegratech, Wikipedia gets round these "which is correct?" disputes with the Wp:common name policy. You could well be right about what the two symbols were called when you were at school but the overwhelming usage today calls it backslash, so that's what we use. But it would be fantastic if you could find a textbook from back then that had them the other way round and make a great addition to the history.

Tadfafty, to be fair, the existing "History" section reads as though the symbol never existed before Bob <insert name> added it to the ASCII standard, so anything we can find to give an actual history of the symbol before then (better still, before 1945) would be really great. But, reluctantly, I reverted your addition of the Wheatstone device temporarily until (a) you can provide a source giving the Wheatstone character set and (b) you write a separate paragraph giving some context.--John Maynard Friedman (talk) 09:18, 23 November 2020 (UTC)

John Maynard Friedman, I will get to working on it to-marrow. Here is an image: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Teletype_Wheatstone_Perforator_keyboard.jpg

Image of another keyboard with / and \, this one much older & belonging to somebody else. https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/proxy/bqzmJGXN_hmfZpcgJTY0r1_xyPWM8MERIxRHvnmUbPQalxzmZG7J1VFNd5O0eEhJvj94CnHUWlTmDtxiFA3rQ1G2B6jeU9_xvtSfvfQj5GqeImkpNQI — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tadfafty (talk • contribs) 07:59, 24 November 2020 (UTC)

John Maynard Friedman See this Wikipedia page Kleinschmidt keyboard perforator. --‎ Tadfafty 20:29, 30 November 2020
@Tadfafty:, these are great finds, especially that we already pictures of these historic keyboards. The 1911 Kleinschmidt is just fantastic. Am I right in guessing that 'perforator' means paper tape punch? Do you have any idea what code they used? (it is not Baudot). BTW, the symbol does not appear on Teletype keyboards, judging from the illustrations on that page.
Most important of all, do you have any idea what meaning the symbol had? If you can manage to write a short intro, that would be great. If you need any help with the formatting etc, just let me know as I can easily do that: what I can't do is write anything sensible about these old devices. If we have to write something feeble like "it was provided on specialised keyboards as early as 1911 but its purpose is not known at this time", well maybe it might provoke someone to dive in. I'll leave a message at talk:Kleinschmidt keyboard perforator to see if anyone watching that page has any clues. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:01, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
@John Maynard Friedman:, Wheatstone code, which is a close relative of Morse code. https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wheatstone_system#Wheatstone_slip typing backslash gives me ⠇⠳⠇⠇⠳⠂(I added this to the Wikipedia article)
According to Wheatstone article that is ._.._ in Morse code, according to Morse cod article that pattern was used for È and ŁSpitzak (talk) 01:51, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
I will note that all the other images of this Kleinschmidt keyboard perforator that I can find online, do not have a \ on them. It would be good if Tadfafty could add more information about the machine photographed. And if possible go back and photograph other parts of the machine. Preferably with more lighting. The keyboard looks to be too clean for a machine 109 years old, so it might have been restored, and perhaps modified. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:47, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I failed to notice that the keyboard image was not a long-standing one on Commons, but rather one that Tadfafty uploaded recently.
Also, I inadvertently misrepresented its age: the article about the Kleinschmidt Perforator says that they were making these machines since 1911 but the unit in the Victoria Museums, for example, is 1940s and Tadfafty says (above) that his unit is 1945. So I agree with Graeme Bartlett, we really need to know a lot more about the provenance of this one.
And to make a perfect three, it didn't occur to me that paper tape could be punched with actual Morse code, hence the request for something more.
I'll get my coat! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:06, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
I have more images.http://www.navy-radio.com/morse/wheatstone-punch-915.jpg http://www.navy-radio.com/morse/wheatstone-punch-912.jpg and this http://www.navy-radio.com/morse/wheatstone-boehme-1412-05.jpg — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tadfafty (talk • contribs) 23:03, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
I also have the original parts manual, (3rd edition, 1945) Which lists both / and \ for keys. page 16 http://www.navy-radio.com/manuals/tty/tty1025.pdf This file is an upload of it I found on the same site as the images. Tadfafty (talk) 23:42, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
I've put a post on a telegraph forum looking for more information on this machine and on .-..- Tadfafty (talk) 23:53, 1 December 2020 (UTC)
That is a great manual. What would be the copyright status of a 1945 company publication? It would be good to know how the backslash key was used, as there are many common punctuation keys missing on that keyboard, eg , . : ; " ( ) - +, so why pick "\"? Anyway the code for \ is the time reversed code for /, so it is symmetric. Also the manual mentions baudot to wheatstone conversion, and there is no "\" in Baudot either. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:38, 2 December 2020 (UTC)
Frustratingly, WP:COPY says we can't even link to that site since it is not clear that the successor to the Teletype Corporation (AT&T?) has waived its copyright. [I suspect most of the website operates on the basis that US Government agency documents are public domain]. But we can certainly cite the document by name and we can use the "quote=" parameter of {{cite book}} to give the line with the part number, under fair use terms, and maybe we might give enough information about it so that someone could easily find it. The ideal, of course, would be for AT&T [if it is they] to release it under a Creative Commons licence. But someone [else!] would have to ask... --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:04, 2 December 2020 (UTC)

Info Box

Is it just me or are the images in the info box wrong? I see this: "/" in the main pic and "/" for "reverse solidus" Have we been trolled? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SheepReaper (talk • contribs) 19:47, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

Yes I reverted that edit.Spitzak (talk) 20:59, 12 January 2021 (UTC)

As far as I can tell from WP:COPY you certainly are allowed to make a reference to a copyrighted work. In this case Teletype Wheatstone perforator. Is the editor really really certain that this is not allowed? IMHO this would require removing about 75% of the references in Wikipedia.Spitzak (talk) 22:20, 4 January 2021 (UTC)

I was too terse. It is certainly permissible and indeed normal to link to copyrighted work. The issue here is that the work has been copied by a third party with no evidence or disclaimer that they have done so with the authority of the copyright owner. As I understand WP:COPY, Wikipedia would become an accessory after the fact if we link to that repository. ​Now how it would not be permitted to link to a good-faith collection of important historic documents – as this one is – but that it is permitted to link to archive.org etc, I really don't know. I hope I have misunderstood! --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:16, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
Linking to a copyright work hosted by someone other than the copyright holder is not allowed, because to do so could be considered contributory copyright infringement. Please see WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK for more information. So, linking to the example is not allowed, because the website is operated by Nick England of Chapel Hill NC, not the copyright holder, the Teletype Corporation. It would be okay to use this manual as a source, but it's not okay to offer a link to this particular copy of the manual.— Diannaa (talk) 11:20, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
@Diannaa:, thank you for your advice. That is how I understood it too, but I couldn't (and still can't) reconcile that with our institutionalised links to archive.org, archive.is etc (via archive-url=). But I have already taken enough of your valuable time so I'll pursue the question to Wikipedia talk:Copyrights. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:10, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
I even wonder about Google Books. What makes that okay? Do they really have copyright holder permission for each book?— Diannaa (talk) 12:11, 5 January 2021 (UTC)
I suspect that they have done some kind of deal with the major publishers because the preview varies from nothing at all ("no preview available"), two lines containing the search words and little more, to twenty or more pages such as you might see if skimming in a bookshop before buying. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:22, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I have opened a question at Wikipedia talk:Copyrights#Do WP:ELNEVER and WP:COPYLINK apply to archive.org, archive.is, etc? If not, why not? to see if we can throw some light on this question. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 12:47, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I found a paper giving a citation to an even earlier Teletype manual, this time 1937. So I read the US law of copyright, which says that works produced between 1905 and 1976 have a copyright duration of 28 years (unless renewed for a further 28 years). It is not credible that Teletype would have bothered to renew this copyright since the technology was obsolete by 1965 and archaeology by 1993. So I have made link to it on the basis of that reasonable assumption. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 11:56, 15 March 2021 (UTC)

History again: the fourth wall

Nixinova changed the active voice "Wikipedia editors have been unable to discover" to the passive voice "is unknown". I understand the concern but I don't agree with the resolution. It begs the question: unknown to whom? Can we really say that there is no-one alive anywhere in the world who knows the answer? --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 00:32, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

I have rewritten it as As of March 2021, efforts to identify either the origin of this character or its purpose before the 1960s have not been successful, which I think resolves both concerns. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 10:49, 4 April 2021 (UTC)

Back lash

--67.21.153.248 (talk) 14:18, 30 September 2021 (UTC)

Has many articles, see Backlash. --John Maynard Friedman (talk) 19:17, 30 September 2021 (UTC)
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