82 SHADY CHARACTERS

Atlantic via satellite link) but it would also be the first to use a novel
and untested technique called “packet switching” on a grand scale.”
Packet switching relied not on a direct connection between sender
and recipient, but instead sent messages from source to destination
by a series of hops across the network, fluidly routing them around
broken or congested links.'3

Some of the technology heavyweights of the time did not even
bid. IBM, firmly wedded to the traditional (and profitable) main¬
frame computer, could not see an economically viable way to build
the network, while Bell Labs’ parent company, AT&T, flatly refused
to believe that packet switching would ever work.'4 In the end, an
intricately detailed two-hundred-page proposal submitted by rela¬
tive underdogs BBN secured the contract, and construction of the
ARPANET began in 1969. The project was a success, and by 1971
nineteen separate computers were communicating across links that
spanned the continental United States.'5

Working in BBN’s headquarters, Ray Tomlinson had not been
directly involved in building the network but was instead employed
in writing programs to make use of it.'6 At the time, electronic mail
already existed in a primitive form, working on the same principle
as an office’s array of pigeonholes: one command left a message for a
named user in a “mailbox” file, and another let the recipient retrieve
it. These messages were transmitted temporally but not spatially, and
never left their host computer. Sender and recipient were effectively
tied to the same machine.'7

Taking a detour from his current assignment, Tomlinson saw an
opportunity to combine this local mailbox system with some of his
previous work. He used CPYNET, a command that sent files from
one computer to another, as the basis for an improved e-mail program
that could modify a mailbox file on any computer on the network, but
the problem remained as to how such a message should be addressed.'8

THE @ SYMBOL 83

LINE

GUIDE

WINDOW

TAPE

PUNCH

ROTARY

DIALER

TAPE .
READER

NAMEPLATE

CHAD

■STAND

CONTAINER

(LEFT FRONT VIEW)

COPY HOLDER

^1:5 ’’Figure $.i The ubiquitous Teletype model ASR-33 teleprinter.

The recipient’s name had to be separated from that of the computer
on which his or her mailbox resided, and Tomlinson was faced with
selecting the most appropriate character for the job from the precious
few offered by the keyboard of his ASR-33 teletype.

Looking down at his terminal, he chose @.

With four decades of e-mail behind us, it is difficult to imag¬
ine anyone in Tomlinson’s situation choosing anything other than
the @ symbol, but his decision was still inspired in several ways. First,
@ was extremely unlikely to occur in computer or user names; sec¬
ond, it had no other significant meaning for the TENEX operating
system on which the commands would run, and last, it was equally