Dog computer symbol. How to type “dog” on the keyboard - three ways for PC and laptop

The person who is called the creator Email and the @ sign, did not invent anything like that, although the stories of the "dog" and e-mail are quite closely intertwined.

The history of the @ sign originates, allegedly, back in the Middle Ages, when the monks - the keepers of ancient knowledge and manuscripts - were engaged in translations and rewrote treatises, including those written in Latin. In Latin, the preposition “ad” is used, which in modern English means “at” (“on”, “in”, “to”) - and indicates belonging, direction and approach. In the script used by the monks, the letter "d" had a small tail, making it look like the number "6" in a mirror image. So “ad” quickly turned into @.

In the 15th century, @ reappears. Spanish merchants used this sign as an abbreviation for the measure of weight - "arroba" (this is approximately 11.52 kg or 25.40 pounds). Curiously, this measure was used to indicate the weight of livestock and wine.

During the Renaissance, @ began to be used to indicate the price, and in the era of the industrial revolution (the time of capital, the first exchanges, machine tools, and so on), @ became invariably found in accounting reports. So the “dog”, along with $, #,% and other “calculus” characters with almost forgotten semantics, migrated to the keyboard.

"Dog" was peacefully waiting for her finest hour, until the eyes of Ray Tomlinson, a researcher from the American company BBN Technology, accidentally fell on her.

Here we need to digress and say a few words about what Tomlinson did and why he is considered not only the inventor of e-mail, but also the @ sign itself, although he is neither one nor the other. The company BBN Technology, where Tomlinson worked, in the late 60s became one of the participants in the ARPANet project - a network of computers, the direct predecessor of the Internet - which was commissioned by the US Department of Defense.

In those years, programs that allowed you to transfer files and messages from one user to another already existed. But the sender and recipient shared the same computer. The fastest modem then worked two hundred times slower than the modern standard modem, which “swings” at a speed of 56.6 Kbps.

Tomlinson was just developing email programs and creating virtual mailboxes. Actually, the virtual mailbox was a file that differed from a regular file in that users could not correct the text - only add it. The operation used two programs - SNDMSG for sending and READMAIL for reading.

The new program that Tomlinson wrote consisted of 200 lines of code and was a combination of SNDMSG, READMAIL, and the CPYNET protocol used by ARPANet to send files to a remote computer. Tomlinson's first message was sent from one computer to another in the same lab.

It took Tomlinson half a year to "distill" the file and experiment before he sent a message from his laboratory to a computer that was indeed remote.

Perhaps the second computer was one of the few that were part of ARPANet. Naturally, CNN announcers did not report the incident, and there were no presentations or awards. The fact that Tomlinson had succeeded in something was known to no more than a few hundred colleagues who had access to the "pranet".

Now back to our "dogs". Tomlinson used a Teletype Model 33 keyboard, and one day he glanced at it, looking for an icon that, firstly, could not appear in any name or title and, secondly, could separate the username from computer name. It was supposed to be a universal algorithm: name - sign - place.

In addition to letters and numbers, there were also punctuation marks on the keyboard, among which there was also a “dog”. In those days (before 1971, when the keyboard model was changed), such signs were located in the second row from the left.

@ was the most correct solution of the algorithm. As Tomlinson himself, who had been pestered by journalists all his life, later said, this was the only possible choice. They say that it was at this moment that the “dog” showed its face to the light, indeed, turning out to be simple, clear and adequate to its mission.

@ experienced its real birth in the 80s, when the computer revolution began - PCs went beyond laboratories, and in the 90s, when the first web browsers appeared. @ users fell in love, and they even say that there is a corresponding road sign.

The etymology of the word "dog" is more confusing. It is believed that only Russian users call the sign by this name. Allegedly, @ in Korean means a snail, in Finnish - a sleeping cat, in Hungarian - a worm, in Chinese - a mouse, in Swedish - a cinnamon bun.

By the way, about a year after the events described - in 1973 - Vinton Cerf from Stanford and Bob Kahn from DARPA invented a protocol that was later called TCP / IP. This was also discussed for a long time only in narrow circles.

The history of the Internet is the history of forgotten names, although almost all the discoverers related to it are alive. Therefore, we think it would be right to at least mention the people who brought e-mail to its modern form.

This is Douglas Engelbart, who not only invented the computer mouse, but also created the first text messaging system, after which Tomlinson gave it the appearance of a mail envelope with columns "where", "to whom" and the text of the letter itself. Further, the program was finalized by Lawrence Roberts, who provided for viewing a list of all letters, selective reading of the desired message, saving the letter in a separate file, forwarding it to another addressee and the possibility of automatically preparing a response.

Tomlinson seems to be amused by the hype around @, unfolding on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of e-mail

Despite the fame that has befallen Tomlinson, he gives the impression of a good-natured person. Particularly lavish festivities with numerous interviews occurred in connection with the 30th anniversary of e-mail in the fall of 2001, although it is clear that e-mail could not appear on the same day, and the “first letter sent” was actually sent on the same day. computer and not at all 30 years ago.

The @ story is also a funny epic related to the content of the first message. There are two legends about this.

The first says that Tomlinson typed QWERTYUIOP - the top row of letters from left to right in the English layout. On this occasion, Radio Liberty writes: “Journalists began to persistently seek. Ray, a person who is not a public profession, did not understand what he could now say a historical phrase like: “In the first email it was written“ We believe in God ”or“ I I love".

He honestly admitted that he simply typed the first characters that came across on the keyboard, because then he still could not know that the letter was historical. But a journalist needs zest for an article. “The scientist never remembered what was in the first e-mail” doesn’t sound very strong. Therefore, the reporter looked at his keyboard and found in the top row a memorable row of capital English letters - QWERTYUIOP. Since then, the engineer has stuck to the QWERTYUIOP version and prefers not to argue.

According to the second version, Tomlinson said that he wrote a quote from Abraham Lincoln's Gettysburg speech about the opening of a new cemetery for the victims. civil war November 19, 1863. It must be assumed that the aged scientist decided to openly scoff at the unhealthy interest in the text of the first electronic message, but even here they began to vying with each other to quote him breathlessly.

It is believed that during the first telephone session, Bell said to his assistant, “Watson, come in, I need you,” into the first telephone receiver. Ordinary and trivial. But really, what do you think about in "historical moments"? Well, not about Lincoln, that's for sure ...

Hello website readers! Many people know the catchphrase “ What kind of dog is this?” from the movie “Ivan Vasilyevich is changing his profession”.

Today we will talk about another "dog" - a computer symbol " @ ”, with which all Internet users are familiar with addresses.

And indeed, it’s terribly interesting - where did such an unusual icon come from, why is it needed, why is it so interesting and even funny named?

Often the origin of things that are generally applicable is obscured due to long periods of time and the lack of surviving evidence and documents.

With regard to the computer dog, everything is quite well known and reliably proven.

• The capital letter “a” outlined by an incomplete circle has been used for a long time and is still used in the field of international commerce.
• The @ sign is an abbreviation English phrase “at the rate of” in payment documents with the value “ price per piece”.
• In a general accounting sense, the English “ at” can be translated as “ in account such and such”.

For some reason, the creators of the Internet decided to use accounting terminology when registering users in various services. This, in general, is quite logical, registration is the entry in the Book of Accounts.

So it is also logical that in the fall of 1971, one of the inventors of e-mail, Ray Samuel Tomlinson, came up with the idea of ​​​​using the “@” sign to indicate the mail domain in an e-mail address.

Useful for travelers and backpackers. In European countries, a road sign with the “@” symbol indicates public Internet access points.

Why is the @ symbol called a dog?

There are several legends why @ was called a dog. The following three versions look the most reliable.

1. The figure above shows the logo of one of the progenitors of the modern world wide web - Fidonet. As you can see, the nose of a sketchy pet is just indicated by the at symbol in a circle.
2. Another version looks even more plausible. At a time when the graphical interface had not yet been invented, a computer game called Adventure was popular. One of the characters was a scout dog, indicated in the playing field with the @ sign.
3. The third version looks far-fetched, but still has a distribution. On one of the first Soviet personal computers DVK, this symbol served as a splash screen when turned on. Allegedly, users saw a dog curled up in this squiggle. However, for such an interpretation it is necessary to have a fairly developed imagination.

How to pronounce dog icon in English and other languages

In Russian, there is a practice to call the symbol “@” “dog” or “dog”. The email address will be voiced by the following phrase.

• “Username Dog Mail (Gmail, Yandex) Tochka Ru (or Kom)”.
• In economics and commerce, accounting, the ligature @ is pronounced and described traditionally as “commercial Et” or “commercial at”.

It is noteworthy that American engineers, who proved themselves to be real masters in inventing various creative nicknames to denote technical terms, this time behaved surprisingly passive and indifferent.

In Anglo-Saxon computer terminology, “dog” is called “commercial ET”, without any reference to funny pets.

Pronounced @ in English, too, without any frills.

• [email protected]
• “Username E-mail dot ru”

It remains to be concluded that this time American national pragmatism worked. Our overseas partners decided that commercial at quite adequately reflects the meaning of the symbol.

• “Account such and such, From the mail domain such and such.”

In some countries of the world, @ also has cool nicknames, like ours.

• "Dog" - in the countries of the former USSR.
• "Monkey" - in Bulgarian, German, Polish.
• "Snail" - in Ukrainian, Italian.

In countries where the ligature @ was known long before the advent of computers, the former pronunciation of “at” or “commercial at” remained. This includes France, Spain and the UK.

How to type the @ symbol on the keyboard

There is no one-size-fits-all answer here. The problem is that there are many types of keyboards and varieties of character layouts.

The picture above shows a classic keyboard with “large keys” and a traditional layout. qwerty in Latin or YZUKEN in Cyrillic.

To enter @ on such a keyboard, you must switch to the Latin font mode and simultaneously press the key Shift and number " 2 ”.

What should I do if there is no “dog” symbol on the keyboard?

In this case, there may be options.

• Switch to symbolic keyboard. Switching can be done with the Alt keys, an asterisk “*”, or a special switch Smbl.
• On mobile devices, smartphones and tablets, there are just a huge number of the most different keyboards. Some are specially designed for messengers and on such keyboards the dog symbol is implemented, for convenience and speed of typing addresses, as a separate key on the main layout.
• On most touch keyboards for mobile devices, the “@” sign is inserted in the same way as on external keyboards for desktop computers and laptops.

What should I do if the @ symbol can't be found on my existing keyboard?

It happens. Then you should refer to the "Symbol Table", access to which is in the list of "Standard Programs" of OS Windows.

Illogically, the “dog” can be inserted through the “Insert” menu - “Symbols” in a text editor.

Email Icon Mile

The symbol "dog" is included in the officially registered trademark and brand logo.

I must say, a very successful and profitable acquisition from the point of view of marketing.

1. First, the @ sign is quite organically associated with the email service.
2. Secondly, the symbol is known to everyone, is popular, so its use as a designation for various products and services of the Mail.ru holding always attracts attention and increases the number of customers. This means that business profits are also growing.

All Mail.ru products are marked with a doggie icon.

• Email service.
• Messenger Mail.ru Agent.
• Amigo browser with Mail.ru search (capital “a” without a circle).

It is simply amazing how many interesting and even unusual things are hidden behind the usual “computer dog”.

Every Internet user has probably come across the "dog" icon, because it is associated with e-mail. It is also now perceived as the closest association with the entire global Internet. They tried to give this symbol a simpler name, for example: "ear", "frog" and so on, in the 90s they even called it "bun", but, unfortunately, they failed to gain a foothold. In Russian, he is given the unspoken name of our four-legged friend, since he looks like this animal curled up. Here is one of the answers to the question why the icon was called "dog". In other countries, this symbol is also associated with various objects or animals, which is discussed further.

Dog icon in other countries

What is this icon called in other languages? Each nation has its own mentality and associations, so the names of the same "dog" icon vary greatly. Did you know that in the Netherlands this sign is called "monkey's tail", in Israel - "strudel", and in Italy even "snail". In the countries of the Scandinavian Peninsula (Norway, Sweden and Denmark), the “dog” familiar to us is called “elephant trunk” or “pig tail”, but there is also a spare name - “twisted harp”. In Hungary, it is unflatteringly called a "worm" or a "tick". The Greeks call it "duck", America and Finland routinely say "cat", and in China and Taiwan, in contrast to the post-Soviet space, it is called "mouse", and in Turkey it is even "rose". The Japanese identify with the forces of nature and talk about this sign "whirlpool", the Kazakhs - "lunar echo". In the Czech Republic and Slovakia, it is customary to call the sign "rollmops" (a roll of herring under a marinade).

Esperanto language and postal symbol

Esperanto is an artificially created language that unites the whole world. It was invented by the Polish ophthalmologist Ludwik Zamenhof in 1887. The plans of its creator were to introduce this language for international communication, to make it the second after the native one for every inhabitant of the globe. So, in Esperanto, this icon is called heliko - "snail".

In 2004, the International Telecommunication Union introduced the code for this symbol @ (. - - . - .) in Morse code to make it easier to use e-mail. Such a code contains the Latin characters A and C, graphically displayed together. Incidentally, this was the only major change that had been made to Morse code since World War II.

Origin and nature of the sign

It is still unknown exactly where this symbol came from. The roots of his "pedigree" are lost in hoary antiquity, but still scientists insist that he appeared at least in the 15th century, and maybe even earlier. All linguists and paleographers are at a loss and cannot establish one true version of the origin of this simple, uncomplicated icon. Here are some popular suggestions:

• The following version is very common in the world. The @ sign is said to have been invented by medieval monks. The first such letter "a" with a long twisted tail was used by the Byzantine chronicler Constantine Manasseh in 1345 instead of the letter "a" in the word "Amen". But for what it was done, scientists have not figured out.
• Also, many people believe that this badge was borrowed from merchants, since they had their own billing system, which looked like this: "1 meter of silk @ $ 5" (a fictional example) - this meant that 1 meter of silk was sold for 5 dollars. The advantage of such a record was its versatility, so any transactions could be made without deep knowledge of the language and unnecessary words.
• Professor Giorgio Stabile found reference in a 16th century document to "one A wine", possibly an amphora. Most likely, the letter A, according to the traditions of that time, was decorated with a curl and looked like something similar to our @ sign. This document dated 1536.

Additional versions

There is also an interesting coincidence. In the 16th century, messengers who were in charge of delivering mail used a post horn. Previously, butchers used them to mark their arrival in some area to buy animals, but already in 1712 the horn was assigned only to postmen and was forbidden to be used by other persons. In Germany, horse mail was also equipped with horns. Even now you can see such horns on various emblems and logos that are somehow connected with the mail. This horn and the @ sign are a bit similar.

The "dog" icon smoothly migrated from typewriters, as it was actively used in trade and related calculations, denoting various prepositions. The first model of the American typewriter brand "Underwood" was already equipped with a key with the @ sign in 1885.

Internet and dog

Internet users should thank programmer Tomlinson - the creator of e-mail. But what does the "dog" icon mean on the World Wide Web? We needed a character that would not be found in any given name and surname, in order to avoid confusion in separating the username and email server, so that there would be no obstacles in the identification process. The choice fell on the already well-known @ icon. Thus, the first email on the Arpanet network was called [email protected] and the "dog" icon on the keyboard has become one of the most requested symbols.

What is such a symbol for?

But why should any email address contain the @ sign? Is it a necessity or just another fashion trend?

The first option is correct. Let's see why.

The mail server in the login is Domain name. It is better to illustrate this with an example. Have an email address [email protected](absolutely random and fictitious login). In this case, humanpower is the username and arpa.com is the domain name, the @ symbol stands for the English preposition "at" and indicates the location of the login, i.e. humanpower on arpa.com.

What happened before Tomlinson?

Before Ray Tomlinson, this icon was used only in creating programs in PHP (the "dog" is used to disable the output of errors, as well as warnings that may appear during program execution), Java (used to declare an annotation), Perl (to define an array ) and Transact-SQL. If it were not for the creator of the mail, then this icon would not be used so actively among ordinary Internet users.

In general, after the creation of the ARPANET network, it did not gather many fans, they did not trust it and did not want to use it. But in 1977 there was a huge breakthrough in the history of the development of the World Wide Web - this network made it possible to send various letters around the world. It was thanks to Tomlinson that the long and slow sending of mail letters around the world was extremely simplified. Any files, documents and images have become very easy to receive and send in seconds.

Why "dog"?

There are many funny versions of why the icon is called "dog". In addition to the main version mentioned at the beginning of the article, the preposition at sounds like a dog barking.

But they agree that this happened because of one of the first computer games "Adventure" ("Adventure"). It was a popular game of the eighties. And the essence of the game was to overcome the labyrinth and reach the depths where the treasures were hidden. There were no graphics familiar to our eyes, since all displays of that time were text. Even simple signs (!, +, -, etc.) were used to indicate obstacles. The game had a main character and a dog - his assistant, which could be used for reconnaissance of the territory. Just it was indicated by the @ sign. But no one will tell you if the sign was named after a character or a character after a sign.

It will no longer be known exactly where this name came from, but nevertheless, this icon on the computer has firmly entered our lives.

How to type the "dog" icon on the keyboard

Everyone knows that the @ symbol on the keyboard is on the number 2 in the top row of numbers. But you can't just get it. You need to switch the keyboard layout from Russian to English. After holding down the Shift button and simultaneously pressing the number 2. And you're done, send your letter!

Unlike complex operations with the dog icon on computers, phones and various handheld gadgets, this icon is available on the character keyboard and next to numbers and punctuation marks.

After talking about how to type the "dog" icon on the keyboard, you would probably be interested to know that it is used not only for the name of the mailbox. Namely:

At first, a cursory and uninterested glance, the discussion of some simple icon seems ridiculous and pointless, but just such topics should be of most interest. Indeed, behind something ordinary there is a huge painstaking work or a long mysterious intricate story, as in our case. That's how many amusing details hid in itself a small mail icon @. We hope that our article has broadened your horizons and you have learned something new.