Hacker News Reader

Looking at the ID on the one bar, I'm kind of surprised that they'd allow 8s and Bs to be valid characters. Seems dangerous if two rods get mixed up or misidentified.

View on HN

So is 1, i, j, 7, l, 5, s, o, 0 just the tip of the iceberg here

They did not allowed lower cases which helped alot. "L" was easily distinguished from "I" |_, so was "B": |3 from 8.

This. Pick a good font and the problem goes away.

And then you have to enforce the font in all written communications and emails that mention things by serial.

You also need to allow for legibility in the face of damage, if that could lead to ambiguity.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com