Calculator spelling (also known as beghilos; see Description, below) is a technique of spelling words by reading characters upside-down from calculators equipped with certain kinds of seven-segment displays. For other uses, see Calculator (disambiguation). ... A seven-segment display (abbreviation: 7-seg(ment) display), less commonly known as a seven-segment indicator, is a form of display device that is an alternative to the more complex dot-matrix displays. ...

Description

An unintended characteristic of the seven-segment display is that many numbers, when read upside-down, appear as letters of the Latin alphabet. Each digit can be mapped to a unique letter, creating a limited but functional subset of the alphabet, sometimes called the beghilos alphabet. Abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz redirects here. ... Superset redirects here. ...

On a calculator, this appears as:

Image File history File links Beghilos. ...

Certain calculators omit the topmost stem on the digit "6" and the bottommost stem on the "9". In such cases, "6" renders a lowercase "q" when turned upside-down, and "9" appears as a lowercase "b". Minuscule, or lower case, is the smaller form (case) of letters (in the Roman alphabet: a, b, c, ...). Originally alphabets were written entirely in majuscule (capital) letters which were spaced between well-defined upper and lower bounds. ...

Only certain calculators are capable of being used for beghilos calculator spelling. LCD, VFD, LED, and Panaplex displays are best for spelling words. The ability of dot-matrix displays, fourteen-segment and sixteen-segment displays to render most characters, defeats the purpose of spelling with a limited alphabet. LCD redirects here. ... A full view of a typical vacuum fluorescent display used in a videocassette recorder A close-up of the VFD highlighting the multiple filaments, tensioned by the sheet metal springs at the right of the image A vacuum fluorescent display (VFD) is a type of display used commonly on consumer... External links LEd Category: TeX ... A dot matrix is an array of dots used to generate characters, symbols and images. ... It has been suggested that this article or section be merged into output device. ... LCD fourteen-segment display as used on Hewlett-Packards HP-41 range of programmable engineering calculators of the 1980s. ... Segment layout, showing all 16 segments. ...

Applications

Aside from novelty and amusement, calculator spelling has limited practicality. Students, in particular, are known to experiment with calculators to find what words are possible. For other uses, see Student (disambiguation). ...

Digital manometer error code.

Calculator spelling can be used in programming as a form of textual feedback on devices with limited output ability. The programmer is given a wider set of letters to use and does not require the reader to turn the device upside-down. This is particularly useful in scientific calculators that feature hexadecimal readout using the letters A through F. Students often use this feature and an improved "alpha" feature that use the letters "A" through "Z" to write messages to each other, separating words by using the minus sign ("-"). Image File history File links Beghilos_error. ... Image File history File links Beghilos_error. ... A manometer is a pressure measuring instrument, often also called pressure gauge. ... Calculator programming is a feature available on many high-end calculators. ... A router, an example of an embedded system. ... A basic arithmetic calculator. ... In mathematics and computer science, hexadecimal, base-16, or simply hex, is a numeral system with a radix, or base, of 16, usually written using the symbols 0–9 and A–F, or a–f. ...

One of the most common applications of beghilos calculator spelling is done by students, often when bored during a mathematics lesson. The 'original' attributed^{[citation needed]} example of calculator spelling, is 5318008, which when turned over spells "BOOBIES". Using a scientific calculator with hex capability, this can be further improved, with the A–F keys and the "!" sign, to spell "b00b1E5!", without needing to rotate the display. For other meanings of mathematics or uses of math and maths, see Mathematics (disambiguation) and Math (disambiguation). ... For other uses, see Breast (disambiguation). ...

Calculator spelling is also used in other languages. An example in Dutch is 707 + 707 = 1414. In calculator spelling this is LOL + LOL = hIhI. The word LOL, means fun and hihi is the Dutch spelling for "heehee" (laughter). In Portuguese, 50135 (upside down 'SEIOS'), means 'boobies'.

Hip hop slang applications include the sequence 3722145 which spells "SHIZZLE". Hip hop is a cultural movement that began amongst urban African American youth in New York and has since spread around the world. ... For other uses, see Slang (disambiguation). ... Shizzle is a rap slang word for sure, coined by E-40 and popularized by rap star (and gap band sampler) Snoop Dogg. ...

7734206 = GO2HELL

See also

Related concepts:

• ASCII art
• Emoticon
• Hexspeak
• Leet speek

ASCII art, an artistic medium relying primarily on computers for presentation, consists of pictures pieced together from characters (preferably from the 95 printable characters defined by ASCII). ... Emoticons originated with text representations. ... Hexspeak, like leetspeak, is a novelty form of variant English spelling. ... This article does not adequately cite its references or sources. ...

In Popular Culture

• The Dutch rock band 35007's name comes from the calculator-spelling of the word "Loose".

35007 live (2002, Weinheim, Germany). ...

References

• Rechnerspielereien, 1973, Publisher Gundig (German); translates directly as "Calculator Games". (No ISBN or author available.)

External links

• Calculator Haikus – Some examples and a report of finding a total of 118 English words possible to display using the upside-down technique
• A list of 250 calculator-spellable English words – A list of calculator spelling words generated by regular expression search
• Taschencode Advanced (German) – Software to emulate an upside-down calculator (MS Windows only)
• Historias de Calculadora (Spanish) – A list of calculator-spellable Spanish words, and Logo code to convert them to numbers