Coins of the pound sterling itself was unchanged by decimalisation.) The first decimal coins – the five pence (5p) and ten pence (10p) — were introduced in 1968 in the run-up to decimalisation in order to familiarise the public with the new system. These initially circulated alongside the pre-decimal coinage and had the same size and value as the existing one shilling and two shilling coins respectively. The fifty pence (50p) coin followed in 1969, replacing the old ten shilling note. The remaining decimal coins – at the time, the half penny (p), penny (1p) and two pence (2p) — were issued in 1971 at
Decimal separator In the Middle Ages, before printing, a bar ( ¯ ) over the units digit was used to separate the integral part of a number from its fractional part, e.g. 995 (meaning, 99.95 in decimal point format). This practice derived from the decimal system used in Indian mathematics and was popularized by the Persian mathematician Al-Khwarizmi, when Latin translation of his work on the Indian numerals introduced the decimal positional number system to the Western world. His "Compendious Book on Calculation by Completion and Balancing" presented the first systematic solution of linear and quadratic equations in Arabic. A similar notation