JargonFile/entries/cokebottle.txt
2014-04-26 16:54:15 +01:00

16 lines
892 B
Plaintext

cokebottle
/kohkbotl/ , n. Any very unusual character, particularly one you can't type
because it isn't on your keyboard. MIT people used to complain about the
control-meta-cokebottle commands at SAIL, and SAIL people complained right
back about the escape-escape-cokebottle commands at MIT. After the demise of
the space-cadet keyboard , cokebottle faded away as serious usage, but was
often invoked humorously to describe an (unspecified) weird or non-intuitive
keystroke command. It may be due for a second inning, however. The OSF/Motif
window manager, mwm (1) , has a reserved keystroke for switching to the
default set of keybindings and behavior. This keystroke is (believe it or
not) control-meta-bang (see bang ). Since the exclamation point looks a lot
like an upside down Coke bottle, Motif hackers have begun referring to this
keystroke as cokebottle. See also quadruple bucky.