Wild Card/Generic retrieval

[Landers, Dianne]

Running Unix 11.0, oracle 8.1.7, ph 8.23d7.
In the manual Powerhouse Rules, the section on using metacharacters, for
the generic character at sign(@), the function description:

Matches zero or more characters (alphabetic, numeric, or special).
Gives the example that I'm trying to use.....
The pattern "@th" matches any value ending with "th".

I'm trying to retrieve records by the following:
> Access partmaster
> Choose partno '@03'
> Rep partno
> Go
 
There is a partno in the database P03, that should be reported.  But I
get zero records found. 
I tried this code, and get an error message:

> access partmaster
> choose partno "@"
                ^^^
*E* The generic choose character is not allowed without a prefix.
> 

So is the manual wrong?  I'm I interpreting the manual wrong?  I'm
confused.