On Jan 18, 2013, at 07:15, Boris Lenz wrote:
>
> Sorry about the ambiguity, I meant the English pound sign for the English
> currency (£). That's x'5B' in the UK codepage IBM-285.
>
Hmmm...
...[O]n September 23, 1999, communication with the [Mars Climate Orbiter]
was lost as the spacecraft went into orbital insertion, due to ground
based computer software which produced output in Imperial units of
pound-seconds (lbf×s) instead of the metric units of newton-seconds (N×s)
specified in the contract between NASA and Lockheed.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mars_Climate_Orbiter cites:
ftp://ftp.hq.nasa.gov/pub/pao/reports/1999/MCO_report.pdf
Likewise, any protocol that quietly translates "$" to "£" might lead to
some very expensive mistakes in business transactions. I suspect lawyers
prudently insist on "U.S. dollars" and "U.K. pounds.
Did Lockheed get paid? Sounds like of breach of contract.
-- gil
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