Symbol
Traditionally, there was never a single symbol or special character for the Spanish peseta. Common abbreviations were "Pt", "Pta", "Pts" and "Ptas", and even using superior letters: "Ptas".
Common earlier Spanish models of mechanical typewriters had the expression "Pts" on a single type head (₧), as a shorthand intended to fill a single type space (₧) in tables instead of three (Pts).
Later, Spanish models of IBM electric typewriters also included the same type in its repertoire.
When the first IBM PC was designed circa 1980, it included a "peseta symbol" ₧ in the ROM of the Monochrome Display Adapter (MDA) and Color Graphics Adapter (CGA) video output cards' hardware, with the code number 158. This original character set chart later became the MS-DOS code page 437.
Some spreadsheet software for PC under MS-DOS, as Lotus 1-2-3, employed this character as the peseta symbol in their Spanish editions.
Subsequent international MS-DOS code pages, like code page 850 and others, deprecated this character in favour of some other national characters, so the "peseta symbol" life was brief.
In order to guarantee the interchange with previous encodings (namely, the code page 437 in this case), the international standard Unicode includes this character as U+20A7 PESETA SIGN in its Currency Symbols block. Other than that, the use of the "peseta symbol" standalone is extremely rare, and has been outdated since the adoption of the euro in Spain.
Read more about this topic: Spanish Peseta
Famous quotes containing the word symbol:
“No one is without Christianity, if we agree on what we mean by that word. It is every individual’s individual code of behavior by means of which he makes himself a better human being than his nature wants to be, if he followed his nature only. Whatever its symbol—cross or crescent or whatever—that symbol is man’s reminder of his duty inside the human race.”
—William Faulkner (1897–1962)
“If we define a sign as an exact reference, it must include symbol because a symbol is an exact reference too. The difference seems to be that a sign is an exact reference to something definite and a symbol an exact reference to something indefinite.”
—William York Tindall (1903–1981)
“A pool is, for many of us in the West, a symbol not of affluence but of order, of control over the uncontrollable. A pool is water, made available and useful, and is, as such, infinitely soothing to the western eye.”
—Joan Didion (b. 1934)