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38 lines
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<?xml version="1.0" encoding="ISO-8859-1" standalone="no"?>
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<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"><head><title>space-cadet keyboard</title><link rel="stylesheet" href="../../jargon.css" type="text/css"/><meta name="generator" content="DocBook XSL Stylesheets V1.61.0"/><link rel="home" href="../index.html" title="The Jargon File"/><link rel="up" href="../S.html" title="S"/><link rel="previous" href="source-of-all-good-bits.html" title="source of all good bits"/><link rel="next" href="spaceship-operator.html" title="spaceship operator"/></head><body><div class="navheader"><table width="100%" summary="Navigation header"><tr><th colspan="3" align="center">space-cadet keyboard</th></tr><tr><td width="20%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="source-of-all-good-bits.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><th width="60%" align="center">S</th><td width="20%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="spaceship-operator.html">Next</a></td></tr></table><hr/></div><dt><a id="space-cadet-keyboard"/><dt xmlns="" id="space-cadet-keyboard"><b>space-cadet keyboard</b>: <span xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml" class="grammar">n.</span></dt></dt><dd><p> A now-legendary device used on MIT LISP machines, which inspired
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several still-current jargon terms and influenced the design of
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<a href="../E/EMACS.html"><i class="glossterm">EMACS</i></a>. It was equipped with no fewer than
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<span class="emphasis"><em>seven</em></span> shift keys: four keys for <a href="../B/bucky-bits.html"><i class="glossterm">bucky
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bits</i></a> (‘control’, ‘meta’,
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‘hyper’, and ‘super’) and three regular shift keys,
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called ‘shift’, ‘top’, and ‘front’.
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Many keys had three symbols on them: a letter and a symbol on the top, and
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a Greek letter on the front. For example, the ‘L’ key had an
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‘L’ and a two-way arrow on the top, and the Greek letter lambda
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on the front. By pressing this key with the right hand while playing an
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appropriate ‘chord’ with the left hand on the shift keys, you
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could get the following results:</p><div class="informaltable"><table border="1"><colgroup><col/><col/></colgroup><tbody><tr><td>L </td><td>lowercase l</td></tr><tr><td>shift-L </td><td>uppercase L</td></tr><tr><td>front-L </td><td>λ</td></tr><tr><td>front-shift-L </td><td>Λ</td></tr><tr><td>top-L </td><td>⇔ (front and shift are ignored)</td></tr></tbody></table></div><p>And of course each of these might also be typed with any combination
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of the control, meta, hyper, and super keys. On this keyboard, you could
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type over 8000 different characters! This allowed the user to type very
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complicated mathematical text, and also to have thousands of
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single-character commands at his disposal. The keyboard of the Symbolics
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Lisp machine was a simplified version, lacking Top and Front keys, that
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could only send about 2000 characters.</p><p>Many hackers were actually willing to memorize the command meanings
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of that many characters if it reduced typing time (this attitude obviously
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shaped the interface of EMACS). Other hackers, however, thought having
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that many bucky bits was overkill, and objected that such a keyboard can
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require three or four hands to operate. See <a href="../B/bucky-bits.html"><i class="glossterm">bucky
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bits</i></a>, <a href="../C/cokebottle.html"><i class="glossterm">cokebottle</i></a>, <a href="../D/double-bucky.html"><i class="glossterm">double
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bucky</i></a>, <a href="../M/meta-bit.html"><i class="glossterm">meta bit</i></a>, <a href="../Q/quadruple-bucky.html"><i class="glossterm">quadruple
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bucky</i></a>.</p><div class="mediaobject"><img src="../graphics/symbolics-keyboard.jpg"/><div class="caption"><p>Simplified Symbolics version of the space-cadet keyboard</p></div></div><p>(Some relatively bad photographs of the earlier, more elaborate
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version are <a href="http://screenshots.sourceforge.net/misc/SpaceCadet.html" target="_top">available on
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the Web.)</a>.</p><p>Note: early versions of this entry incorrectly identified the
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space-cadet keyboard with the <span class="firstterm">Knight
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keyboard</span>. Though both were designed by Tom Knight, the latter
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term was properly applied only to a keyboard used for ITS on the PDP-10 and
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modeled on the Stanford keyboard (as described under <a href="../B/bucky-bits.html"><i class="glossterm">bucky
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bits</i></a>). The true space-cadet keyboard evolved from the first
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Knight keyboard.</p><div class="mediaobject"><a id="crunchly73-05-19"/><img src="../graphics/73-05-19.png"/><div class="caption"><p>An early <a href="space-cadet-keyboard.html"><i class="glossterm">space-cadet keyboard</i></a></p><p>(The next cartoon in the Crunchly saga is
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<a href="../D/drop-outs.html#crunchly73-05-20">73-05-20</a>. The previous one is
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<a href="../M/math-out.html#crunchly73-05-18">73-05-18</a>.)</p></div></div></dd><div class="navfooter"><hr/><table width="100%" summary="Navigation footer"><tr><td width="40%" align="left"><a accesskey="p" href="source-of-all-good-bits.html">Prev</a><EFBFBD></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="u" href="../S.html">Up</a></td><td width="40%" align="right"><EFBFBD><a accesskey="n" href="spaceship-operator.html">Next</a></td></tr><tr><td width="40%" align="left" valign="top">source of all good bits<74></td><td width="20%" align="center"><a accesskey="h" href="../index.html">Home</a></td><td width="40%" align="right" valign="top"><EFBFBD>spaceship operator</td></tr></table></div></body></html>
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