From: Mark E. Shoulson (mark@kli.org)
Date: Fri Dec 19 2003 - 09:39:47 EST
On 12/19/03 03:05, Arcane Jill wrote:
>
> Another minor US/UK difference is that <shift 2> is double quotes in
> England, not @.
I remember my old TRS-80 had double-quotes on shift-2 as well. I
half-remember that it had something to do with the bit-patterns, so the
shift key could work by applying a fairly trivial transformation to the
unshifted characters. "2" is 0032 and """ is 0022, so I may not be
completely mistaken... yeah, I think it looks right: the rest of the
shifted-number symbols match the number symbols minus 0010.
> I never understood why a certain computer company saw fit to squeeze
> three extra keys onto an already crowded keyboard.
Not sure I do either, but I have to admit it comes in handy to have a
couple of extra shift keys. I map them to things like
compose-character, Meta, stuff like that. But then, I don't use that
company's software much.
> As another aside (and a possibly useful tip), I once had a keyboard
> with black keys, on which the letters were printed in white. Being a
> touch-typist, I painted all the key legends out with black paint,
> leaving only legendless keys.
Didn't Big Julie in Guys and Dolls try the same thing with dice? He
remembered where the spots formerly were...
~mark
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