3 ms·

It's hard to tell but it looks like they have open- and close-parenthesis on the base (un-shifted) layer, which is awesome. That always puzzled me about the Sp

by na85 5y ago

It's hard to tell but it looks like they have open- and close-parenthesis on the base (un-shifted) layer, which is awesome. That always puzzled me about the Space Cadet on the Symbolics Lisp Machines... you designed a machine from scratch that is ostensibly intended to be used and programmed with an awful lot of lisp code, but you expect the programmer to hit Shift+0 and Shift+9 each time they want a paren? C'mon. Anyways this looks awesome; wish I had a use case for it.

mhdhn 5y ago
nuh uh. They were where square brackets [ and ] are on a "normal" keyboard. See image here: https://twitter.com/qrs/status/863959923339792384 https://twitter.com/qrs/status/863959923339792384
DonHopkins 5y ago
The Symbolics Space Cadet keyboard had dedicated paren keys: http://xahlee.info/kbd/space-cadet_keyboard.html http://xahlee.info/kbd/space-cadet_keyboard.html Here's the rumor I heard from Gumby about why it was designed that way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187422 DonHopkins on July 29, 2016 | parent | context | favorite | on: Unexecute The Lisp Machine keyboard had dedicated open and close parenthesis keys, so you could hold a hefty bag of nitrous oxide in your other hand while you typed s-expressions. qwertyuiop924 on July 29, 2016 [–] Wait, what are you doing with that nitrous oxoide? Should I start worrying? DonHopkins on July 29, 2016 | parent [–] Reflecting on the S-expressions I just typed! qwertyuiop924 on July 29, 2016 | root | parent [–] Well, when you're done with the nitrous oxide, just toss whatever you wrote into the obfuscated code contest. DonHopkins on July 29, 2016 | root | parent [–] There's a reason the paren keys had really fast auto-repeat!
na85 5y ago
Edit by way of reply since the edit window is closed: I apparently have seen pics of what I thought was the symbolics space cadet but apparently it's some other keyboard with parens on 0 and 9. My bad.
- lispm 5y ago
  The MIT Lisp Machine keyboard and also the Symbolics keyboard(s) had parentheses on shift-9 and shift-0. They also had unshifted parentheses a row below, right next to the P.
Zababa 5y ago
Interesting, on AZERTY (french) keyboards, parentheses are unshifted. They are on 5 and on ° (the key just right of 0). On the other hand, { is on alt gr on 4, [ on alt gr on 5, ] on alt gr ° and } on alt gr + (right of °). I wonder if it influences the programming languages that people prefer, even just a bit. Or maybe the style? Unshifted parenthesis makes function call easier for example.
whartung 5y ago
I know it sounds silly, but one of the things that I particularly like about Lisp is the lack of the shift key. Notably, you can use identifiers-like-this. Yea, I haven't made the plunge to move () off the shift key, but I barely notice it compared to having to alwaysTypeLikeThis or type_like_this. The keyboard fatigue adds up, and it's just an intangible I like about the language.

by na85 5y ago

mhdhn 5y ago

nuh uh. They were where square brackets [ and ] are on a "normal" keyboard. See image here: https://twitter.com/qrs/status/863959923339792384 https://twitter.com/qrs/status/863959923339792384

DonHopkins 5y ago

The Symbolics Space Cadet keyboard had dedicated paren keys: http://xahlee.info/kbd/space-cadet_keyboard.html http://xahlee.info/kbd/space-cadet_keyboard.html Here's the rumor I heard from Gumby about why it was designed that way: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187422 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12187422 DonHopkins on July 29, 2016 | parent | context | favorite | on: Unexecute The Lisp Machine keyboard had dedicated open and close parenthesis keys, so you could hold a hefty bag of nitrous oxide in your other hand while you typed s-expressions. qwertyuiop924 on July 29, 2016 [–] Wait, what are you doing with that nitrous oxoide? Should I start worrying? DonHopkins on July 29, 2016 | parent [–] Reflecting on the S-expressions I just typed! qwertyuiop924 on July 29, 2016 | root | parent [–] Well, when you're done with the nitrous oxide, just toss whatever you wrote into the obfuscated code contest. DonHopkins on July 29, 2016 | root | parent [–] There's a reason the paren keys had really fast auto-repeat!

na85 5y ago

Edit by way of reply since the edit window is closed: I apparently have seen pics of what I thought was the symbolics space cadet but apparently it's some other keyboard with parens on 0 and 9. My bad.

lispm 5y ago
The MIT Lisp Machine keyboard and also the Symbolics keyboard(s) had parentheses on shift-9 and shift-0. They also had unshifted parentheses a row below, right next to the P.

Zababa 5y ago

Interesting, on AZERTY (french) keyboards, parentheses are unshifted. They are on 5 and on ° (the key just right of 0). On the other hand, { is on alt gr on 4, [ on alt gr on 5, ] on alt gr ° and } on alt gr + (right of °). I wonder if it influences the programming languages that people prefer, even just a bit. Or maybe the style? Unshifted parenthesis makes function call easier for example.

whartung 5y ago

I know it sounds silly, but one of the things that I particularly like about Lisp is the lack of the shift key. Notably, you can use identifiers-like-this. Yea, I haven't made the plunge to move () off the shift key, but I barely notice it compared to having to alwaysTypeLikeThis or type_like_this. The keyboard fatigue adds up, and it's just an intangible I like about the language.