splat

splat n.  1. Name used in many places (DEC, IBM, and others)
   for the asterisk (`*') character (ASCII 0101010).  This may
   derive from the `squashed-bug' appearance of the asterisk on many
   early line printers.  2. [MIT] Name used by some people for the
   `#' character (ASCII 0100011).  3. [Rochester Institute of
   Technology] The {feature key} on a Mac (same as {alt}, sense
   2).  4. obs. Name used by some people for the Stanford/ITS extended
   ASCII
   circle-x
   character.  This character is also called `blobby' and `frob',
   among other names; it is sometimes used by mathematicians as a
   notation for `tensor product'.  5. obs. Name for the
   semi-mythical Stanford extended ASCII
   circle-plus
   character.  See also {{ASCII}}.