Where the @ symbol came from – and USB, Power, Sleep, all that

Readymag has what ought to be an irritating slideshow style feature about where various familiar computer symbols have come from. The @ is one, so is Bluetooth, so are ones you might not be able to picture but would recognise immediately: USB, Power, Sleep, something else.

It is a slideshow, you do have to tap through when really they could’ve done all this on one page, thank you very much, but it isn’t annoying because it looks so good. It’s just really gorgeously done. Take a look for yourself.

But when you have, go buy a copy of the book Shady Characters (UK edition, US edition), okay? That’s got a much fuller piece about the @ symbol plus very many more like the & and % that we know from real life instead of computers.

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