Wow, not what I was expecting. Ten thousand words to tell a story of how the @ symbol was chosen for use in email, a story most of us could probably have guessed. I was expecting to learn the origin of the symbol itself.

Even the author seems to recognize a failure to address the origins, closing with:

How, though, how did the ‘@’ symbol find its way onto the keyboard of Ray Tomlinson’s ASR-33 teletype and so pass into internet history? Moreoever, where did it come from in the first place?

In case anyone is curious: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/At_sign