The hippest internet cafe of 1995 [video] (opens in new tab)

In Danish, it's "snabel-a", ie "[elephant's] trunk-a". # was at a time when a popular youth radio show had an IRC channel called "havelåge" or "garden gate", but "firkant" (simply "square") was and remains in wide use in voice response systems. Neither symbol had as far as I know any mainstream use before this time.

# in internet-contexts has transitioned to "hashtag" (remains "firkant" in voice response), but as far as I know snabel-a is still in use (I just realised that I haven't participated in a Danish verbal transmission of an email address in quite a while).

In Dutch we call it a "apenstaartje" ("monkey tail") although "at" is used and understood as well nowadays.

In Bulgaria it's gone through several disjointed phases. You can use either "кльомба" (klyomba, I have no idea what it's supposed to mean), "маймунка" (maymunka, monkey), "маймунско А" (maymunsko A, monkey A) or "at" to refer to it.

In Swedish you can hear "snabel-A" (trunk-A, same as in Danish) or "at".

In Finland we call it "kissanhäntä" (cat's tail) or "miukumauku". "Miu" and "mau" are actually cat's meows, so "miukumauku" is kind of a "a meow, a meow" with two different words.

Nowadays it's usually called "ät-merkki" as in "at-sign" as "at" is spelled in Finnish.

In Italian, it's still "chiocciola" (pron. kiotcholah), i.e. snail.

In greece I'd say the majority still uses the "papaki" which means little duck: Papia is duck, -aki is the little one, papaki.

in Ukraine it's "собака" (pron. "sobAka") and it means simply "dog"

I faintly remember the Klammeraffe. Fun times.

In Poland it is still called Małpa, which means monkey.

As a non-German: Please do explain the etymology here

It's a different symbol than the sharp, and I don't blame anyone for not knowing it's rarely used for that purpose these days.

I had a web design professor who said its "true" name was octothorpe, and while various sources confirm that, I've never heard anyone else call it that. Another student in the same class once called it the "tic tac toe symbol."

Where I'm from (UK) this has always been called the "hash" symbol. Although British Telecom voice prompts insisted on calling it the "square" key for a while.

The symbol is named 'hash' in Britain.

"Pound symbol" always confuses me. £ is the symbol for Pound sterling, and on UK keyboards that's at the same place (shift-3) as the # is on the US keyboards that we use in the Netherlands.

It's as if people who call # the pound sign are from the UK and typed shift-3 on someone else's keyboard without actually noticing what showed up on the screen.

It has always been called hash in some regions/contexts. I'm pretty sure the shape itself (i.e. regardless of context) is called an octothorpe. So no it's not at all like that.

There is a podcast on the origin of the octothorpe name http://99percentinvisible.org/episode/octothorpe/

It's a hash, not a hashtag. The hashtag is the # plus a "tag" word. When someone says "hashtag foo", they went spelling it out # + foo, they are saying "this is a hashtag, not a regular word in my setencen; the tag is foo" and the # is silent.

#prescriptivism.

A problem with calling # a "pound sign" is that it's easily confused with £.

I never understood why it was known as a "pound sign" in America. Surely that would be "£" ?

I think I have some Googling to do. :)

or octothorp

Aka small gate

I really never thought they would take off.

I did buy an Atari 2500St for college, and didn't tell anyone. I felt like I was cheating.

While all the other students were griping about typing, or paying a typist; I just hit print.

My girlfrined in college hated the "thing". Yes--she called it the "thing". "Leave that thing alone."

She is now a millionaire, and head of technology at some company.

After college, I bought a small electronic typewritter, that did word processing.

I hated everything about computing, besides word processing, and didn't see the need for a computer if I wasen't in school.

Plus, I tried programming, and I Knew I didn't want to spend my life in front of a screen, for anyone, for any amout of money. I hated those 500 page computer programming phone books. I just hated computing on so many levels, it's ironic now.

I honesly didn't get the magic in programming until later on--a lot later on. Well that Atari went right into the garbage in the 90's. Yes--ouch! I so wish I had it now.

I don't think people realize, in the 90's, it was really a gamble if the average person would buy a computer, even a GUI based system. Some people just hated everything about them. They were just so unsexy. So dry to many of us. So boring. So tedious, and never seemed to just work.

I had a friend remind me in the 90's computing is an art too. He is now a multimillionaire. We worked at a chit job, and his friend's said, "My dad is willing to invest in a gaming company for us. Do you want to join?" He did have to think about it. In a few years he was set for life. He didn't ask me to join them, but I probally would have turned the offer down. I idnt get games, nor did I think the business would last more than a few months. Awe--again, so wrong!

My mom was one of the first to buy a used blue Mac, and she loved every thing about it. It was then, I knew they would be big, and I was so wrong. I figured if she was willing to try them, they are making strides, at least Apple.

I still didn't find the magic in computing/programming until about 15 years ago--sadly.

I think you underestimate how much energy it takes to cool down and freeze water and how inefficient it is to simply place that near the server.

I remember the RAIN network! I also remember the lovely spray-painted recycled Wyse terminals that were installed locally at the Speakeasy itself. Those were all I used -- I didn't bother with the PCs they had there.

I never lived in Seattle, but every time I visited (from California) I made it a point to stop by the Speakeasy nearly every day... and sometimes in the evening as well to take in a show. It's fun to hear from someone like yourself who was involved in the magic!