A now-legendary device us
ed on
MIT Lisp machines, which inspir
ed several still-current jargon terms and influenc
ed the design of
Emacs. It was equipp
ed with no fewer than *seven* shift keys: four keys for
bucky bits ("control", "meta", "hyper", and "super") and three like regular shift keys, call
ed "shift", "top", and "front". Many keys had three symbols on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on the front. For example, the "L" key had an "L" and a two-way arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda on the front. 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 front-L lowercase lambda front-shift-L uppercase lambda top-L two-way arrow (front and shift are ignor
ed) And of course each of these might also be typ
ed with any combination of the control, meta, hyper, and super keys. On this keyboard, you could type over 8000 different characters! This allow
ed the user to type very complicat
ed 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 r
educ
ed typing time (this attitude obviously shap
ed the interface of
Emacs). Other hackers, however, thought that many
bucky bits was overkill, and object
ed 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 entry incorrectly identifi
ed the space-cadet keyboard with the "Knight keyboard". Though both were design
ed by Tom Knight, the latter term was properly appli
ed only to a keyboard us
ed for
ITS on the
PDP-10 and modell
ed on the Stanford keyboard (as describ
ed under {bucky bits}). The true space-cadet keyboard evolv
ed 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 ]