OpenEuphoria

Re: Typesetter's question

• Posted by Al Getz <Xaxo at aol.com> Apr 03, 2006
• 506 views

This is the at or address sign. On the Internet,  @ is the symbol in e-mail
 addresses
that separates the name of the user from the name of the server that stores the
 users'
 e-mail messages.
In business,  formerly meant at or each. Three goblets @ 45 dollars, for
 example,
 meant each goblet costed 45 dollars. 
This sign was one of the standard characters on all typewriters' QWERTY
 keyboards for
a long time. You can see it on most old typewriters on the same key as number
 2.
The sign was chosen as one of the special characters in the ASCII set of
 characters
that became standard for computer keyboards, programs, and online message
 transmission.
In July, 1972, as the specifications for the file-transfer protocol were being
 written,
someone suggested including some e-mail programs written by Ray Tomlinson, an
 engineer
at Bolt Beranek and Newman, cheif contractor on ARPANET, the precursor of the
 Internet.
In their book, Where Wizards Stay Up Late, Katie Hafner and Matthew Lyon
 describe how
 the @-sign got there: 
"Tomlinson [...] became better known for a brilliant (he called it obvious)
 decision
he made while writing [the e-mail] software. He needed a way to separate the
 name of
the user from the machine the user was on. How should that be denoted? He
 wanted a
character that would not, under any circumstances, be found in the user's name.
 He
looked down at the keyboard he was using, a Model 33 Teletype, which almost
 everyone
else on the Net used, too. In addition to the letters and numerals there were
 about a
dozen punctuation marks. `I got there first, so I got to choose any punctuation
 I wanted',
Tomlinson said. `I chose the @-sign.' The character also had the advantage of
 meaning
`at' the designated institution. He had no idea he was creating an icon for the
 wired
 world." 
Thus, the @-sign is not a new invention. Some researchers even believe it was
 used as
early as in the sixth or seventh century, probably as a ligature (combination)
 of the
 two letters a and d for Latin ad, meaning to. 
The @-sign has different names in different languages: In England it is called
 at-sign
or commercial at, in Germany Klammeraffe (hanging monkey), in France arobas or
 petit
escargot (small snail), in Spain arroba (an entity for weight) and in Italy
 chiocciolina
 (small snail). 


Take care,
Al

And, good luck with your Euphoria programming!

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 From "Black Knight":
"I can live with losing the good fight,
 but i can not live without fighting it".
"Well on second thought, maybe not."