[stan_rogers]

Traditionally you'd use a lower-case ell for a numeral one, since there was no numeral one on your keyboard. Nor was there a separate zero. All of this "different characters for different uses" nonsense is for that newfangled electronic stuff.

[ncmncm]

"I had to code a database using just ones and zeroes."

"Oh, you had ones? We had to use the letter ell."