16 Jun
2024
16 Jun
'24
1:13 p.m.
On Jun 16, 2024, at 7:09 AM, Joshua Rice via cctalk
<cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
On 16/06/2024 11:53, D. Resor via cctalk wrote:
Great question. Not a direct answer but an example of user friendly cursor keys: PLATO IV
terminals have a main keyboard with some function keys mostly to the right -- keys with
labels like HELP and STOP. There are also operator keys to the left: plus, minus,
multiply, and divide signs. The shifted codes are roughly like on an ASR-33, for example
shift period is exclamation point. No numeric keypad nor dedicated cursor keys.
Instead, when cursor key functionality was needed, programs would by convention use the
keys surrounding "s" for that, and the keycaps are marked with 8 different
arrows. So not just up down left right, but also the diagonals in between. It makes
keyboard-operated graphics editing a lot easier. (These terminals didn't have a
mouse, though they often had an early touch screen.) So for user friendliness these are
hard to beat; the direction away from "s" is the direction of the movement you
get -- even more obvious than "inverted T".
paul
*snip*
The cursor key layout could have been laid out in a more user friendly way.
Don Resor
Not a huge amount different to most contemporary machines. Cursor keys were notoriously
unergonomic before the introduction of the inverted T layout present on the DEC LK-201,
which became the industry standard keyboard layout after IBM copied it for the Model M.
Basically every home microcomputer that had cursor keys, had them inline with each other
in a very unintuitive layout.
I imagine that DEC likely weren't the first to come up with the inverted T, even if
they were the first to place it on it's own between the main QWERTY section and the
number pad (which is also unlikely). Is anyone aware of earlier examples of the inverted
T, or at least similar layouts to the LK201? Josh Rice