3
YADU
6y

I ask what i think is an interesting question i havent been able to answer on software engineering stack exchange ("why did the original Basic use the caret for exponentiation"). Even said "no subjective answers, please provide a source" in my post.

Result: a bunch of comments saying it "because it looks like an up arrow", comments saying I'm rude because i said no subjective answers, and a bunch of downvotes.

Did eventually get a good answer though. The system works.

Comments
  • 4
    Don't leave us hanging, what was the answer?
  • 2
    @7400

    Basically, in 1964, ASCII didn't have a caret, it had an up-arrow (at the same location caret is today). Basic used that for exponentiation, because it looked like a substitute for superscripting. When ASCII later changed the up-arrow to a caret, Basic switched to that.

    Not all that surprising, but i have sources now.
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