Re: Fkeys (was: Re: the same old IBM/Lexmark keyboards)

[Paul Williams paulwilliams5@xxxxxxxx]

Well, here is a keyboard to add to your collection!

I have an Atex keyboard. Atex, you may remember, is the progenitor of
XyWrite. Later on Atex bought back some rights to create their own WRITER
software to run on PCs networked with the mainframe, and produced their
very own PC keyboards which had:

Cursor control and page control keys on left (12 of them)
20 keys on right including Insert and Insert lock
47 (yep, that is not a typo, 47) function keys on top
8 keys top left.

Ho ho, and not a single key marked CTRL !! The central bit is classic
typewriter layout! Can you imagine the fun programming that keyboard?

Paul

At 12:40 PM 30-05-99 -0400, you wrote:
>Just to put in my two cents' worth, I paid quite a bit more than two cents
>(and had to enlist the help of a fellow list member) to obtain a keyboard
>with two sets of F keys, one on the top and one on the side. (Anyone who
>ever learns where to buy such a keyboard is invited to contact me: I intend
>to start a heterogeneous collection if I can.)
>
>My crying need for such a keyboard is just another illustration of the
>truth that *what you're used to* turns out to be what God intended. I
>started using an employer's computer, whose keyboard was my first to
>include F11 and F12, only months before I switched to Xy4. So Shft+F12 for
>function RD (can't even remember what it was in Xy3) was my first
>application for either of those two extra F keys; then I programmed F11 and
>F12 as extra shifting keys (is that the term of art? what I mean is, I
>created two new "tables" in my EVT.KBD file, so that I input [e.g.]
>accented letters by F11+[letter]). Because left-hand F11 and F12 are an
>awkward touch-typing reach (I have a small hand), I started using the
>along-the-top versions of those keys.
>
>Now I'm habituated to quite irrational F-key preferences. For some reason,
>I almost always use the upper F2 for on-the-fly SaveGets (even though I've
>just realized for the first time that half of those SGs would be *much*
>easier to use with the left-hand F2); but I invariably use the left-hand F3
>and F4 for defining text. I wouldn't know *how* to use the upper F10 with
>Alt for toggling between two screens, or the upper F6 for cycling through
>screens; yet I'm ambidextrous when it comes to F5 to open the CM line.
>
>Go figure.
>
>Cheers
>Eric Van Tassel