octal forty

from Jargon File (4.4.4, 14 Aug 2003)

octal forty
 /ok'tl for'tee/, n.

   Hackish way of saying "I'm drawing a blank." Octal 40 is the {ASCII}
   space character, 0100000; by an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 (01000000)
   is the {EBCDIC} space character. See {wall}.

from The Free On-line Dictionary of Computing (8 July 2008)

octal forty

   <jargon> Jargon for "I'm drawing a blank.", I can't work it
   out.

   {Octal} 40 (decimal 32) is the {ASCII} code for space
   character.  By an odd coincidence, {hex} 40 is the {EBCDIC}
   space character.

   [{Jargon File}]

   (1995-03-06)

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