The space-cadet keyboard is a keyboard designed by John L. Kulp in 1978 and used on Lisp machines at

Massachusetts Institute of Technology The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a Private university, private Land-grant university, land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern t ...

(MIT), which inspired several still-current jargon terms in the field of

computer science Computer science is the study of computation, automation, and information. Computer science spans theoretical disciplines (such as algorithms, theory of computation, information theory, and automation) to practical disciplines (includin ...

and influenced the design of

Emacs Emacs , originally named EMACS (an acronym for "Editor MACroS"), is a family of text editors that are characterized by their extensibility. The manual for the most widely used variant, GNU Emacs, describes it as "the extensible, customizable, ...

. It was inspired by the Knight keyboard, which was developed for the Knight TV system, used with MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System.

Description

The space-cadet keyboard was equipped with seven

modifier key In computing, a modifier key is a special key (or combination) on a computer keyboard that temporarily modifies the normal action of another key when pressed together. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing; that is, pressing any of the , ...

s: four keys for bucky bits (, , , and ), and three shift keys, called , , and (which was labeled on the ''front'' of the key; the top was labeled ). had been introduced on the earlier Knight keyboard, while and were introduced by this keyboard. Each group was in a row, thus allowing easy chording, or pressing of several modifier keys; for example, could be pressed with the fingers of one hand, while the other hand pressed another key. Many keys had three symbols on them, accessible by means of the shift keys: a letter and a symbol on the top, and a Greek letter on the front. For example, the key had a "G" and an up-arrow ("↑") on the top, and the Greek letter gamma ("") on the front. By pressing this key with one hand while playing an appropriate "chord" with the other hand on the shift keys, the user could get the following results: Each of these might, in addition, be typed with any combination of the , , , and keys. By combining the modifier keys, it is possible to make

(50 \text \times 5 \text) \times 2^ = 4000 \text

. This allowed the user to type very complicated mathematical text, and also to have thousands of single-character commands at their disposal. Many users were willing to memorise the command meanings of so many characters if it reduced typing time. This attitude shaped the interface of

; compare the use of the key in vi, due to the convenient position of the key on the ADM-3A terminal. Other users, however, thought that so many keys were excessive and objected to this design on the grounds that such a keyboard can be difficult to operate. Emacs uses "M-" as the prefix for when describing key presses: the "M-" stood for on the space-cadet keyboard, and when Emacs was ported to PCs, the key was used in place of . This keyboard included a key which had limited application support. It also included four Roman Numeral keys (, , , and ) which allowed for easy interaction with lists of four or fewer choices.

References

External links

Space Cadet
Mike McMahon's discussion of the keyboard, with illustrative pictures and technical documentation

on the space-cadet keyboard
The Lisp keyboards
overview of the space-cadet and other famous Lisp keyboards * {{Keyboard keys Computer keyboard types Lisp (programming language)

Description

See also

References

External links