[texhax] TeX without backslash: possible?

[Donald Arseneau]

Michael Barr <barr at math.mcgill.ca> writes:

> I am typing this from a public access terminal in a Quebec City hotel. The
> keyboard lacks a backslash and it got me wondering if TeX was even possible
> on it.  Sure you can change the catcode of some other character (but which?),

Back in the day, with TeX on IBM/Amdahl mainframe, EBCDIC character set,
there was no \.  As I recall, the format was altered to use the logical-not
character as the escape char.  ... But maybe it was used as the non-breaking
space, and the solid (or broken) vertical bar was the escape char.  I can't
remember for sure.

-- 
Donald Arseneau                          asnd at triumf.ca