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Comment by ohazi

6 years ago

I actually saw a car with a license plate like this last week. Some combination of I's and 1's. White Ford Mustang driving around Santa Clara.

In UK number plates I and 1 are the same character, as are O and 0:

https://www.dafont.com/uk-number-plate.font?text=O0I1l

Number plates existed for decades before ASCII was invented. Before computers, people often used mechanical typewriters which didn't have keys for 0 and 1: you typed 0 as O and 1 as l. I threw away one such typewriter recently. It was in good working condition, with its instruction manual. It had been made in a country that no longer exists. You may imagine how sad and nostalgic I felt.

I've seen something similar in New Zealand. Probably wouldn't be fooling anyone given the size of the country and how distinctive the car was.