Welcoming the telegraph to the 21st Century.

For the first time in "at least several decades," a new symbol has been added to Morse Code. It's the "@" symbol, to be officially known as a "commat" and represented by the signals for "A" and "C" (dot-dash and dash-dot-dash-dot respectively) with no space between them.

And it's being done to allow ham radio operators to exchange email addresses more easily. (They use Morse Code to initiate conversations that end up taking place over the Internet.)

Back in my Boy Scout days, I knew Morse Code reasonably well, and even took part in a competition by wig-wag flags. And I'm happy to say that I've forgotten virtually all of that stuff.