3 ms·

One of the comments on that blog post says the backslash was invented by Bob Bemer at the time he developed ASCII in the 1960s, also linking to a page that supp

• lifthrasiir 6y ago
  I briefly checked comments and missed that. ;-) I would be more cautious to say that he invented backslashes, as it's unknown that he was aware of earlier uses of backslashes. (I've checked both the page and its citations and they gave no more information.)
  • 4cao 6y ago
    > I would be more cautious to say that he invented backslashes You're right of course, I was just relaying what the post there said. There was prior usage as early as in the 1940s as you mentioned. According to Wikipedia, [1] its origins are unknown: > As of January 2021, Wikipedia editors have not been able to find the origin of this character nor even the purposes to which it was put before the 1960s. The earliest known reference found to date is a 1945 bulletin from the Teletype Corporation that lists it as a replaceable part for its Wheatstone perforator. On the other hand, I think it's safe to say it would have remained an obscure character had it not been for Bob Bemer. 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backslash#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Backslash#History