Single page: http://www.wired.com/gadgetlab/2010/08/computer-symbols-hist...

Further, it was submitted 5 hours before this item:

http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=1610309

The first time you can find the @ is from a 1448 but it was used as a measure , meaning 1/4 of a quintal (an ancient spanish weight measure) . (In spanish with photos of ancient @'s) http://tejiendoelmundo.wordpress.com/2010/07/21/la-curiosa-h... (In french) http://hapax.qc.ca/Pourquoi_arrobe_dans_10646.html

The beachball was present in NeXTStep, there's no mystery over where Apple got it!