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Reference documents
History
posted by Rob on December 10, 2008 07:56 PM
As part of sorting out my late dad's affairs, I'm having to go through lots of paperwork. It's nearly all from the last few years, as he was good at clearing out anything that was no longer needed. So the odd document from long ago really stands out. One such is, I suspect, his first pay slip. I also came across this invoice from 1968 (click here to see a picture of part of it). It's for a brand new Ford Cortina in Alpina Green at a basic cost of £656 and ten shillings (including safety belts). Given in part exchange was a Vauxhall Victor. I assume this is the first car he bought from new. I particularly like the invoice produced on a typewriter with 'I's instead of '1's for some reason. Pure history.
Comments: 5
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Nice of them to throw in the wing mirrors for free.
Posted by: Anna on December 11, 2008 02:24 AM
Old papers can be fascinating, moving, painful, enlightening. I'm reading my grandfather's letters from 100 years ago and they're teaching me such a lot.
Posted by: Sue Hepworth on December 11, 2008 07:15 AM
The 1 key had probably broken off
Posted by: leila on December 11, 2008 09:38 AM
Many old typewriters do not contain a separate key for the numeral 1 or the exclamation point, and some even older ones also lack the numeral zero. Typists who learned on these machines learned the habit of using the lowercase letter l for the digit 1, and the uppercase O for the zero. The exclamation point was a three-stroke combination of an apostrophe, a backspace, and a period. These characters were omitted to simplify design and reduce manufacturing and maintenance costs; they were chosen specifically because they were "redundant" and could be recreated using other keys. On modern keyboards, the exclamation point is the shifted character on the 1 key, a direct result of the heritage that these were the last characters to become "standard" on keyboards.
How very interesting. I'll get my coat.
Posted by: David on December 11, 2008 11:37 AM
some people used to use a capital "i" for the digit 1, as in I984, $I0I.23, or is that $IOI.23 (with a capital O).
Not very easy to read.
Posted by: pierre l on December 11, 2008 12:06 PM