2014-04-26 10:52:28 -04:00
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bucky bits
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2014-04-26 11:54:15 -04:00
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/buhkee bits/ , n. 1. [obs.] The bits produced by the CONTROL and META shift
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keys on a SAIL keyboard (octal 200 and 400 respectively), resulting in a
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9-bit keyboard character set. The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards extended this
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with TOP and separate left and right CONTROL and META keys, resulting in a
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12-bit character set; later, LISP Machines added such keys as SUPER, HYPER,
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and GREEK (see space-cadet keyboard ). 2. By extension, bits associated with
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extra shift keys on any keyboard, e.g., the ALT on an IBM PC or command and
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option keys on a Macintosh. It has long been rumored that bucky bits were
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named for Buckminster Fuller during a period when he was consulting at
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Stanford. Actually, bucky bits were invented by Niklaus Wirth when he was at
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Stanford in 1964--65; he first suggested the idea of an EDIT key to set the
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8th bit of an otherwise 7-bit ASCII character). It seems that, unknown to
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Wirth, certain Stanford hackers had privately nicknamed him Bucky after a
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prominent portion of his dental anatomy, and this nickname transferred to
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the bit. Bucky-bit commands were used in a number of editors written at
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Stanford, including most notably TV-EDIT and NLS. The term spread to MIT and
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CMU early and is now in general use. Ironically, Wirth himself remained
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unaware of its derivation for nearly 30 years, until GLS dug up this history
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in early 1993! See double bucky , quadruple bucky.
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