A now-legendary device used on
MIT Lisp machines, which inspired several still-curre
NT jargon terms and influenced the design of
Emacs. It was equipped with no fewer than *seven* shift keys: four keys for
bucky bits ("co
NTrol", "meta", "hyper", and "super") and three like regular shift keys, called "shift", "top", and "fro
NT". Many keys had three symbols on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on the fro
NT. For example, the "L" key had an "L" and a two-way arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda on the fro
NT. By pressing this key with the right hand while playing an appropriate "chord" with the left hand on the shift keys, you could get the following results: L lowercase l shift-L uppercase L fro
NT-L lowercase lambda fro
NT-shift-L uppercase lambda top-L two-way arrow (fro
NT and shift are ignored) And of course each of these might also be typed with any combination of the co
NTrol, meta, hyper, and super keys. On this keyboard, you could type over 8000 differe
NT characters! This allowed the user to type very complicated mathematical text, and also to have thousands of single-character commands at his disposal. Many hackers were actually willing to memorise the command meanings of that many characters if it reduced typing time (this attitude obviously shaped the i
NTerface of
Emacs). Other hackers, however, thought that many
bucky bits was overkill, and objected that such a keyboard can require three or four hands to operate. See
cokebottle,
double bucky,
meta bit, {quadruple bucky}. Note: early versions of this e
NTry incorrectly ide
NTified the space-cadet keyboard with the "Knight keyboard". Though both were designed by Tom Knight, the latter term was properly applied only to a keyboard used for
ITS on the
PDP-10 and modelled on the Stanford keyboard (as described under {bucky bits}). The true space-cadet keyboard evolved from the Knight keyboard. [
Jargon File] (1994-12-05)
In addition suitable coNTeNTs:
[ 2 ] [ = ] [ ad ] [ al ] [ am ] [ an ] [ any key ] [ app ] [ ar ] [ arc ] [ arg ] [ as ] [ at ] [ av ] [ B ] [ b ] [ bd ] [ be ] [ bi ] [ bit ] [ bj ] [ bo ] [ boa ] [ board ] [ bot ] [ bucky bits ] [ bv ] [ by ] [ ca ] [ case ] [ cat ] [ ch ] [ char ] [ character ] [ ck ] [ co ] [ cokebottle ] [ com ] [ combination ] [ comma ] [ command ] [ con ] [ coNTrol ] [ cr ] [ cu ] [ curreNT ] [ D ] [ de ] [ design ] [ device ] [ diff ] [ do ] [ double bucky ] [ DP ] [ du ] [ E ] [ ec ] [ ed ] [ edu ] [ ee ] [ eg ] [ er ] [ era ] [ es ] [ et ] [ fi ] [ file ] [ fo ] [ for ] [ fr ] [ G ] [ ge ] [ gen ] [ gh ] [ gl ] [ gn ] [ gs ] [ gu ] [ h ] [ hack ] [ hacker ] [ hat ] [ hr ] [ ht ] [ id ] [ ie ] [ iff ] [ il ] [ in ] [ inc ] [ iNT ] [ iNTerface ] [ io ] [ ir ] [ is ] [ IT ] [ it ] [ ITS ] [ J ] [ jar ] [ Jargon File ] [ K ] [ ke ] [ key ] [ keyboard ] [ ki ] [ ky ] [ la ] [ ld ] [ Lex ] [ li ] [ Lisp ] [ ls ] [ lt ] [ lu ] [ lv ] [ ly ] [ M ] [ ma ] [ machine ] [ man ] [ meta ] [ meta bit ] [ MIT ] [ mm ] [ mo ] [ mod ] [ mode ] [ model ] [ module ] [ mp ] [ ms ] [ N ] [ na ] [ nc ] [ ne ] [ nf ] [ ng ] [ ni ] [ nl ] [ no ] [ ns ] [ O ] [ object ] [ om ] [ op ] [ pa ] [ PD ] [ PDP ] [ PDP-10 ] [ pe ] [ ph ] [ ping ] [ pl ] [ pr ] [ quad ] [ quadruple bucky ] [ query ] [ rc ] [ re ] [ rl ] [ ro ] [ row ] [ ru ] [ S ] [ sa ] [ sc ] [ se ] [ sh ] [ si ] [ sig ] [ sl ] [ so ] [ space ] [ st ] [ su ] [ sy ] [ T ] [ ] [ text ] [ th ] [ to ] [ Tom Knight ] [ tr ] [ TS ] [ tt ] [ tw ] [ type ] [ ua ] [ ug ] [ up ] [ us ] [ user ] [ ve ] [ version ] [ vi ] [ while ] [ win ]