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From: waltrip@capd.jhuapl.edu
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: Those Damn Keyboards
Message-ID: <1991Feb7.130858.1@capd.jhuapl.edu>
Date: 7 Feb 91 18:08:58 GMT
References: <5137@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>
Sender: news@aplcomm.JHUAPL.EDU
Organization: CAPVAX, JHU/APL
Lines: 32

In article <5137@media-lab.MEDIA.MIT.EDU>, lacsap@plethora.media.mit.edu 
(Pascal Chesnais) writes:

	[...stuff deleted in which poster laments the advent of the new
	keyboards and stuff from NeXT explaining that the new keyboard had to be
	ISO compliant...]

> One of the key requirements was that the return key had to be "L"
> shaped.  To accomplish this, one of the keys had to be removed and the
> key codes remapped.  In lengthy discussions with our engineers and our
> European and Asian teams, the new key layout was approved.
	I'm typing this from a VAXstation 3100 which has a keyboard which I
	believe is ANSI compliant...isn't it also ISO compliant?  If it is
	ISO compliant, it takes a different approach than the new NeXT
	keyboard.  It has a return key in the shape of a backwards, inverted
	ell.  This leaves room for the "|\" key nestled right there in the
	crook of the return key.

	Now I haven't received the NeXTstation I have on order and so I don't
	want to cry before I'm hurt, but I am suggesting that maybe there is an
	approach to this keyboard issue that could make users happy while still
	complying with standards (a very good thing in its own right and much
	to be encouraged).  As I believe Pascal suggested in his post, we might
	all have worked together on this one...maybe we still could?

	[...more stuff deleted...]

c.f.waltrip

Internet:  <waltrip@capsrv.jhuapl.edu>

Opinions expressed are my own.