deskthority

I'm looking for information on the keys on the Xerox keyboards from the 1980s:

• Xerox 1186 (daybreak)

• Xerox 1109 (dandetiger?)

There are several specialized keys along the left, right, and top.

I'm interest in knowing what each one does during Lisp programming or text editing.
Some are obvious used for styling, but the expand / next and keys like that, I need contextual information.,

Pointers appreciated! (sorry, bad pun)

Perhaps this Xah guy might be able to help? He does some Lisp programming.

http://xahlee.info/kbd/xerox_1109_lisp_keyboard.html

http://xahlee.info/kbd/lisp_keyboards.html

http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttga ... _Sep88.pdf

page 16

Thanks for the PDF link! It had detailed descriptions of the key names and their function

The keyboard for the 1108 is the same as the 8010 Star.

Photos of one are here: http://bitsavers.informatik.uni-stuttga ... 08_GI_kbd/

-J

Huh. It looks like the designers made text editing the priority, right down to keys for font sizes.

And then didn't bother to provide cursor keys... Of course back then, not all terminals had cursor keys anyway, and serious programmers all used vi or emacs, which had been developed for machines without such keys.

In Xerox: nobody types.

PARC scientists even coined a disparaging term for the execs—”toner heads.”