Discovery Symbol "@" Role in Commerce to Connect People in the World

You must often see the symbol @ or 'at' either in the smartphone or on your computer. Do you know what the meaning of the symbol really is and how early is the invention?

There is a theory about the origin of the @ symbol. In the middle ages, the monks sought a quick way while copying the manuscripts, they changed the Latin word "to" to "a" with the back "d" as the tail.

Some say it comes from the French word "at" ie "à" with the pen tip sweeping around the side and top. The first usage was documented in 1563, in a letter by Francesco Lapi, a Florentine trader, who uses @ to denote a unit of wine called amphorae.

The symbol then has a historic role in the trade. Merchants have long used it to signify "unit price" - for example "5 pencils @ Rp2000" which means the total amount is Rp10,000 instead of Rp2000.

The first typewriter made in the mid-1800s there was no @ symbol. Thus pulan, @ is not included in the symbol arrangement of the punch-card tabulation system (first used to collect and process the US census in 1890), which is a precursor to computer programming.

Read Also :

1. HomeTechnoTech News 5 Phases of Technology Advancement from Time to Time
2. For Security, the Amazon Drawer Drone will be destroyed in the Air when Damaged
3. Getting to Blogger's History, Creating Service Founder Founder Twitter - New !!
4. History of Fire Was First Discovered
5. It's The Discoverer Of Coffee And Its History
6. It's The First Inventor of Motorcycles In The World As Well As Its History
7. Know This History of Internet Creation !!!
8. Revealed, It's The Function Facts Early Wheel in Mouse
9. So Iron Man is not a dream, this guy creates his sophisticated machine
10. Sony's First Product Is Not Smartphone! It's It!

In 1971, a computer scientist named Ray Tomlinson faced problems, namely how to connect people who program computers with each other. At that time, every programmer is usually connected to a certain mainframe machine via phone connection and teletype machine (keyboard with built-in printer).

However, the computers are not connected to each other. The issue is handled by the US government with the help of BBN Technologies, Cambridge, Massachusetts, the company where Tomlison works, to develop the Arpanet network, the predecessor of the internet.

Tomlinson's challenge is how to address a person's message sent via Arpanet to get to someone else on a different computer.

Symbols that separate the two elements of the address can not be used extensively in programs and operating systems so that the computer is not confused. Tomlinson's eye was then drawn to the @ symbol, above "P" on the Model 33 teletype.

"I'm looking for a symbol that is not widely used. There are not many options. I can use the same marks, exclamation marks or commas, but that does not make sense, "Tomlinson said.

Finally the choice falls on the @ symbol. With the naming system, he sent an email to himself via teletype in his room to a different teletype that is also in his room, using Arpanet.

Tomlinson, who still works at BBN, says he can not remember what he wrote in that first email. However, with the message, now the @ symbol, which was once almost obsolete, has become a symbolic revolution of human connections in the world.