Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The command to burn all
LEDs is double bucky F."
This term originated on the Stanford extended-ASCII keyboard,
at MIT. A typical MIT comment was that the Stanford
buckybits (control and meta shifting keys) were nice, but there
weren't enough of them; you could type only 512 different
characters on a Stanford keyboard. An obvious way to address
this was simply to add more shifting keys, and this was
eventually done; but a keyboard with that many shifting keys
is hard on touch-typists, who don't like to move their hands
away from the home position on the keyboard. It was
half-seriously suggested that the extra shifting keys be
implemented as pedals; typing on such a keyboard would be very
much like playing a full pipe organ. This idea is mentioned
in a parody of a very fine song by Jeffrey Moss called "Rubber
Duckie", which was published in "The Sesame Street Songbook"
(Simon and Schuster 1971, ISBN 0-671-21036-X). These lyrics
were written on May 27, 1978, in celebration of the Stanford
keyboard:
Double Bucky
Double bucky, you're the one!
You make my keyboard lots of fun.
Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
(Vo-vo-de-o!)
Control and meta, side by side,
Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
Double bucky! Half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
Oh,
I sure wish that I
Had a couple of
Bits more!
Perhaps a
Set of pedals to
Make the number of
Bits four:
Double double bucky!
Double bucky, left and right
OR'd together, outta sight!
Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!
- The Great Quux
(With apologies to Jeffrey Moss. This, by the way, is an
excellent example of computer
filk --- ESR).
(1994-12-07)