Talk:Homoglyph

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[edit] Typewriter keyboards

I'm not so sure that it was the case that typists used 1 and l and 0 and O interchangeably - it was more that, because these look similar, many typewriter manufacturers economised by having no 1 key (and sometimes no 0 key), the typist then being obliged to use lower-case L (and upper-case O, respectively). So the use of lower-case L for 1 was out of necessity rather than choice. I don't think any typist would deliberately have used 1 (one), if it was available, for a lower-case L, not least because this is inefficient for a touch-typist. This suggests that the use of lower-case L for 1 (and O for 0) was one-way rather than interchangeable. — Paul G 08:53, 14 August 2006 (UTC)