Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!mit-eddie!bu.edu!inmet!stt
From: stt@inmet.inmet.com
Newsgroups: comp.lang.misc
Subject: Re: ^ considered mysterious
Message-ID: <21900003@inmet>
Date: 1 Jan 91 20:39:00 GMT
Lines: 14
Nf-ID: #R:<1Yz6Dw#3j256N9kwrs12ZPbSl0B78BO:-56:inmet:21900003:000:533
Nf-From: inmet.inmet.com!stt    Jan  1 15:39:00 1991


Algol 60, Basic, and many other languages have used the
circumflex, or up-arrow (as it used to print on some teletypes)
to indicate exponentiation.  It has the obvious superscript
connotation, and so is very natural.  The fact that circumflex
doesn't appear on 026 and 029 keypunches (if my memory
serves me) must have inhibited its use in the US for 
card-oriented languages like Fortran.  It also doesn't
appear on IBM 3270 terminals, which are essentially
glass-029s (:-o).

S. Tucker Taft
Intermetrics, Inc.
Cambridge, MA  02138