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Great Runes: n. Uppercase-only text or display messages. Some archaic operating
systems still emit these. See also runes,
smash case, fold case. There is a widespread legend (repeated by earlier versions of this
entry, though tagged as folklore) that the uppercase-only support of
various old character codes and I/O equipment was chosen by a religious
person in a position of power at the Teletype Company because supporting
both upper and lower cases was too expensive and supporting lower case only
would have made it impossible to spell ‘God’ correctly. Not
true; the upper-case interpretation of teleprinter codes was well
established by 1870, long before Teletype was even founded.
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