>>In the IT world, of course, it's always been used to denote a number, but we've always called it "hash" (as in hash marks which are crossing scores)
>>
>>Now I've heard the automated phone voice say "... Other just press 'square'" :-)
>>
>
>I got one the other day that said "Please enter your five digit zip code, followed by the pound sign." Sloppy design! If a fixed number of digits are expected, and there is no way to edit the response before sending (a la backspace), why is ANY terminating character needed?

I'm using a phone service to dial home, which requires the # at the end - but it's not really mandatory. The point here is that this service is not hooked to my 011 calls, I actually have to dial their 800 number, then get a voice saying "...follwed by a pound key". But even if I forget to press the #, it still dials... after a while. Here, I can see the reason: the number of digits is not fixed (the area codes aren't fixed length across the world, and local numbers can be anything between four and seven digits), so they need a terminating code, or a timeout (I think it's set at about three seconds) to know when you're done dialing.

For the zip code... I really don't see the point. Sloppy programming?