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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!allegra!mit-eddie!genrad!panda!husc6!harvard!topaz!bentley!kwh
From: kwh@bentley.UUCP (KW Heuer)
Newsgroups: net.info-terms,net.internat
Subject: Re: In search of a sane keyboard standard
Message-ID: <787@bentley.UUCP>
Date: Sun, 4-May-86 17:19:10 EDT
Article-I.D.: bentley.787
Posted: Sun May  4 17:19:10 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 6-May-86 06:01:41 EDT
References: <2071@cbosgd.UUCP>
Organization: AT&T Bell Laboratories, Liberty Corner
Lines: 91
Keywords: keyboard, standard, ANSI
Xref: watmath net.info-terms:905 net.internat:263

In article <2071@cbosgd.UUCP> cbosgd!mark writes:
>Note that the popular practice of putting [ and ] unshifted and { and }
>shifted to the right of P is forbidden [in ANSI X4.14].

I've never understood that stupid convention of putting [ and ] on the same
key.  They are used the same amount, after all (except in LISP).  Can you
imagine how hard it would be to type on a keyboard where ) was a shifted ( ?

>(1) Regular touch typing of letters, typewriter style, should work.  This
>means the QWERTY arrangement of letters ...

Dvorak arrangement would be better, of course, if enough people used it.  I
wish IBM had introduced it with the Selectric, since they were changing the
non-alphabetic keys anyway.  (I know that some older typewriters had the
bit paired arrangement, but I'm not sure if the Selectric was the first of
the modern style.)

>(2) The CTRL, TAB, and ESC keys are very heavily used ...  TAB must go
>directly to the left of Q, and ESC directly to the left of 1.

I once used a terminal that had BACKTAB to the left of 1.  The first time I
ran TECO on it, I couldn't find ESC.  No problem, I figured, I'll just use
CTRL-[ instead.  Unfortunately that also generated a BACKTAB (^Y) because of
the way the keyboard was wired!

>(4) The numbers 1-0 should be in the standard places.  The shifted numbers
>should be !@#$%^&*(), typewriter style.  (Bit paired keyboards, where ( and
>) are shift 8 and 9, are very difficult to use.)

It just depends on what you're accustomed to, I think.  I started with bit
paired terminals, and had lots of trouble when I started using typewriter
style keyboards.  If all keyboards were alike, it wouldn't much matter where
the special characters are (as long as all forms of bracket, () [] {} <>,
are on adjacent keys), or even if they moved 0 to the left of 1 (which would
make more sense anyway).

>Let's finish the job and create a complete standard keyboard arrangement.
[picture deleted]

I mostly like it.  I'm a little worried about BREAK; that's often a dangerous
key and should perhaps be further from RETURN and LINEFEED.  Or else make it
a two-key operation.

>[This keyboard] puts CAPS LOCK out of the way, yet easily reachable.  (CAPS
>LOCK isn't a key that is used a lot, even by secretaries who make up the
>largest demand for IBM Selectric style keyboards.)

I use SHIFT LOCK (or CAPS LOCK) so infrequently that I wouldn't mind if it
were moved to a side keypad, or removed entirely.  If both it and CTRL are
to the left of A, in either order, people will have trouble with it.  Next
the space bar isn't too bad, though I've still managed to hit it by mistake.

Here's a thought.  How about a keyboard that toggles CAPS LOCK when the user
hits both shift keys together?

(And while I'm thinking of it: why doesn't somebody make a keyboard without
explicit function keys, but where CTRL-1 thru CTRL-0 generate an appropriate
escape sequence?)

>Comments and suggested improvements are welcome.

You neglected to specify the semantics of the CTRL key.  The ASCII character
set has 32 control characters (33 if you count DEL), but only 26 letters.
One of the others (ESC) has its own key.  On a keyboard where ] and \ are
unshifted, I'd expect CTRL to generate ^] and ^\ in the obvious way.  That
leaves three unspecified: ^@ (NUL), ^^ (RS), and ^_ (US).  How do you
propose to generate these?

Some implementations include:

[0]  You can't generate them.  ("None of our programs require those control
     characters, so they can't be important.")  Clearly a bad choice.

[1]  Since "@" "^" "_" are the shifts of "2" "6" "-", use CTRL-SHIFT with
     those keys.  This is mnemonic, but slightly awkward.

[2]  Same except SHIFT not required.

[3]  Other related keys.  CTRL-SPACE for ^@, CTRL-~ for ^^, CTRL-? for ^_
     make sense if you think of CTRL as "0x1f &"; I believe this is what the
     VT100 uses.  (Because of which there's an annoying inconsistency between
     the TTY 5420 and the "VT100 compatible" TTY 5425).  The TTY 5620 uses
     ",<" ".>" and "/?"; the latter two make sense if you think in terms of
     the shifted forms, but the ",<" key must have been chosen for position.

[4]  Other arbitrary keys.  I think it was the IBM 3101 that was so brain-
     damaged that we had to use special labels in order to use the local
     screen editor.  (They also put a "<>" key between Z and left SHIFT.)

I think this should be part of the standard.  (Sigh, this was so *simple*
on the bit paired keyboards.)