I am so sorry children but the use of "backslash" predates the internet and Microsoft operating systems.
The APL programming language (Q.V.) used forward slash as a function to perform compression. It used backslash to perform expansion... quite clever actually... see below:
user types: 0 0 1 1 1 1 / 'ABCDEF' APL replies with answer: CDEF
user types: 1 1 0 0 0 0 \ 'ABCDEF' APL replies with answer: AB
This use of backslash predates Microsoft, the internet and even BASIC!
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momijizukamori
slash and backslash
Date: 2010-07-25 20:50 (UTC)The APL programming language (Q.V.) used forward slash as a function to perform compression. It used backslash to perform expansion... quite clever actually... see below:
user types:
0 0 1 1 1 1 / 'ABCDEF'
APL replies with answer:
CDEF
user types:
1 1 0 0 0 0 \ 'ABCDEF'
APL replies with answer:
AB
This use of backslash predates Microsoft, the internet and even BASIC!