@ Issue: Long Code for a Small Symbol By MARK GLASSMAN, The New York Times
THE French say petit escargot; the Dutch call it a monkey's tail. On a qwerty keyboard, it's Shift-2. And next month, amateur radio enthusiasts will call it dit-dah-dah-dit-dah-dit.
That is when the symbol @ officially becomes the newest character in the Morse code.
'As far as we know, this is the first change to the code in at least 60 years,' said Gary Fowlie, a spokesman for the International Telecommunication Union, the arm of the United Nations that will oversee the update, which is to become official on May 3. 'There is a need for it.'