High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! When personal computers started to become mainstream in the early 1980s, it became one of the things associated with the hacker culture of the time. Some cartoons depicted computer users talking in binary code with 1s and 0s using a slashed zero for the 0. The use of the Scandinavian vowel ø in the name of the Hawkwind-influenced 1980s space-rock band Underground Zerø may have been inspired by the usage of the slashed zero by many computer systems of the time; which resembled ø (see article "Heavy metal umlaut"). The slashed zero symbol is widely used in written Amateur radio callsigns, codes for video-games, software product keys, New Zealand alphanumeric car number plates, and any other instance when clarity is necessary. Slashed zeroes can also be used on cheques in order to prevent fraud, for example: changing a 0 to an 8.