I'm sure this use of $ character is much older than Perl. One counter-example I know first hand: Sinclair ROM BASIC uses $ for denoting strings, in both variab

I'm sure this use of $ character is much older than Perl. One counter-example I know first hand: Sinclair ROM BASIC uses $ for denoting strings, in both variable and function names. The one I have in a Spectrum is copyrighted 1982, around 5 years before first Perl was released. I'm sure there are older examples like this.