Re: XyWrite and TeX

[Leslie Bialler lb136@xxxxxxxx]

Brian.Henderson@xxxxxxxx wrote:

> > > This is wholly alien to me. I know it's an old canard, but going back
> > > to the mid-80s, why and how did IBM put over the change from the XT
> > > keyboard to the AT (the removal of the function keys on the left and
> > > the putting of ctrl and alt in absurd positions).
> > >   
>
>
>
>
> > I miss the Royal Standard keyboard from the mid-1950s, which had an
> > elongated tab key about where the return key would turn up on electric
> > models. You could hit it with your palm. I miss it but I don't expect to
> > see it again. And for sure I don't spend any time whining about it.
> >  
>
>
> I'm not a touch-typist, and my (PC) experience with keyboards doesn't go back beyond the current
> standard (I did start out on a mainframe terminal with a keyboard dedicated to text manipulation...I
> miss it). But I know of a keyboard "quirk" I think has to be the worst yet. Compaq
> "dumped" on our company (we had a supply & maintenance contract) a bunch of keyboards
> with a split spacebar...with the left half being a backspace key! You COULD change it to a space key
> with a complicated maneuver, but it would always revert at reboot. Untold man-hours were spent
> searching for a way to make "space" the default and when it was determined to be
> impossible the whole lot was dumped in the trash (for some perverse reason I actually salvaged one).
> It was impossible to use without constantly deleting last characters...sometimes you'd
> notice...sometimes not.
I'm glad you saved yours. It could go on exhibit if anybody ever creates
a National Museum of "What WERE They Thinking."


> -Brian H.


--
Leslie Bialler, Columbia University Press
lb136@xxxxxxxx
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