Comments by "EebstertheGreat" (@EebstertheGreat) on "How to Read Logic" video.
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@bethhentges It certainly existed, but there are all kinds of ligatures and symbols that didn't make ASCII, like ×, ÷, †, “, », §, ¶, —, £, ¢, ½, °, ©, •, etc. It seems very odd that @ did, given how rare it was. It might have been seen as important for ledgers, receipts, and financial documents, though from what I can tell, it was not common even there (it has become slightly more common since). I guess it was in BCDIC though, and that's how it ended up in ASCII, but that just pushes the question back further. Presumably some Hollerith machines used it way back when and it just got grandfathered in.
Backslash is another character that was (and is) rarely used outside of computing. Apparently it was added to ASCII for compatibility with ALGOL though, so that at least answers that question.
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