Re: a key system to replace gnu emacs's 1000 default keybindings

[Xah Lee]

Dear Thad Floryan,

so, i read your long response.

in summery, if i may:

Thad Floryan wrote:
> Circa 1965 I was using a TTY33ASR and it's control key was to the left
> …
> My next keyboard/terminal was a Datapoint 3300 which was essentially
> …
> I've been using Emacs since 1975 (getting my first copy from the Pentagon,

but, what is your point? Sure, you are a dinosaur, i'm sold on that.
But if we are still having a reasonable debate, have you addressed any
criticism i made about those who claim swapping Capslock/Ctrl is a
good thing?

 Xah

On May 26, 4:30 pm, Thad Floryan <t...@thadlabs.com> wrote:
> On 5/26/2012 9:45 AM, Xah Lee wrote:
>
> > On May 26, 8:57 am, Dan Espen <des...@verizon.net> wrote:
> >> Perhaps you should read more carefully.
>
> >> Thad remapped Caps Lock to ANOTHER Ctrl.
> >> He didn't SWAP anything.
>
> > that doesn't matter. Those who use capslock for Ctrl basically only
> > use that single key for Ctrl.
>
> And?  Given how ubiquitous a control key is within Emacs, it should
> be easy to type, not requiring one to bend one's finger down to where
> a [Ctrl] key is located beneath the left shift key on PC keyboards.
>
> When I started using computers in the early 1960s, we had to use cards.
>
> Circa 1965 I was using a TTY33ASR and it's control key was to the left
> of [A].  Several editors I was using back then (10 years before Emacs
> existed) used the control key extensively to that the editor was truly
> a WYSIWYG (What You See Is What You Get).
>
> My next keyboard/terminal was a Datapoint 3300 which was essentially
> a "glass teletype" with the exact same keyboard layout at the TTY33ASR
> with the [Ctrl] to the left of [A].  That Datapoint 3300 was followed
> by a Datamedia DT80 (a VT100 clone) whose [Ctrl] was also to the left
> of [A].
>
> All the AT&T and Sun computers I owned and used since then have had the
> [Ctrl] to the left of [A] and all keyboards since then I've mapped the
> [Caps Lock] to be another control key.
>
> I've been using Emacs since 1975 (getting my first copy from the Pentagon,
> a customer of mine at the time) and subsequent copies from MIT and RMS
> including this copy of the Emacs manual that RMS handed me which is the
> oldest one I found in my archives and I scanned years ago:
>
>     <http://thadlabs.com/FILES/Emacs-150_1980.09.05.pdf>
>
> I don't know what (apparent) misshapen hand you have, but having the
> [Ctrl] to the left of [A] is comfortable and "natural" to me since
> control characters are ubiquitous within Emacs and Bash.
>
> > [...]
> > if you consider Capslock key useless, you can given it another
> > function.
>
> Precisely.  Making the [Caps Lock] another [Ctrl] makes perfect
> sense for anyone using Emacs and/or Bash.