Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rpi!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!unix.cis.pitt.edu!dsinc!bagate!cbmvax!daveh From: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.advocacy Subject: Re: Keyboards (was Re: Wake Up Commodore!) Message-ID: <20264@cbmvax.commodore.com> Date: 2 Apr 91 15:44:48 GMT References: <1991Mar20.223535.248@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <1991Mar22.040419.27268@cunixf.cc.columbia.edu> <20124@cbmvax.commodore.com> Reply-To: daveh@cbmvax.commodore.com (Dave Haynie) Distribution: comp Organization: Commodore, West Chester, PA Lines: 33 In article vinsci@nic.funet.fi (Leonard Norrgard) writes: >Dave Haynie writes: >>In article jph@ais.org (Joseph Hillenburg) writes: >>>Yep, actually, I wish that C= would use audible IBM-type keyboards. (The only >>>thing IBM does right IS their keyboards...) >>Ugh! Say it ain't so! Someone actually likes those IBM keyboards?!? The >>PC-AT keyboard layout was designed by the devil itself. A giant CAPS-LOCK key, >>and the CTRL key off in never-never land. The only proper keyboard is >>something reasonably DEC VT100-ish. >You mean VT220-ish, of course, the only sane industry standard >keyboard. Almost, but not quite. The VT220 is nice in many respects, but it totally beamed out by trying to hide the ESC key in the middle of the top row of keys. Everyone knows it belongs on the end, like the CTRL key, so you can use Emacs and stay sane. My theory is that this was planned. DEC noticed more and more people heaving EDT into the dumpster and using Emacs, and that didn't sit well with them. So they decided to make Emacs architecturally more difficult to use by putting one ugly into their improved keyboard. And the world suffers. I don't have a theory about the PC-AT CAPS-LOCK key. After all, what reasoning is their behind pure madness? -- Dave Haynie Commodore-Amiga (Amiga 3000) "The Crew That Never Rests" {uunet|pyramid|rutgers}!cbmvax!daveh PLINK: hazy BIX: hazy "That's me in the corner, that's me in the spotlight" -R.E.M.