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this post was submitted on 04 Jan 2024
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Isn't that just
super/ win key ?Nope, there used to be a fuckton of modifiers on early keyboards. https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/47/Space-cadet.jpg
Wow, it even has a Like button. And a button to rub one out!
"Greek". They knew how to party back then! ;)
Thank you for sharing this!
It is my understanding that, because of the keyboard on a system that hasn't been used in 50 years, Unix-like systems understand 6 modifier keys: Shift, Alt, Ctrl, Super, Hyper and Meta.
Linux binds the "Windows" key on a typical PC keyboard to either Super or Meta. Seems to depend on the distro. In either case, in practice it's used to bind shortcuts and macros similar to how the Windows key works in Windows, a single tap opens the app menu, holding it as a modifier key is usually bound to shortcuts that talk to the desktop environment rather than the active application.
It was linked a little up thread, but since you're (probably) referring to the "Space-cadet" keyboard, it was seven.
Technically, they drew a distinction between the "shift" keys (of which there were three), and the other modifiers (four).
In modern times (or for Linux at least), Meta has essentially coalesced with Alt, so the modifiers we've retained are Control, Alt, and Super (Windows), with only "Hyper" having been lost along the way.
The remaining two shifts (also lost to time) were "Top" (symbols) and "Front" (Greek), with the Greek supporting combining with shift (there's a table on that Wiki page).
Here's the summary for the wikipedia article you mentioned in your comment:
The space-cadet keyboard is a keyboard designed by John L. Kulp in 1978 and used on Lisp machines at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), which inspired several still-current jargon terms in the field of computer science and influenced the design of Emacs. It was inspired by the Knight keyboard, which was developed for the Knight TV system, used with MIT's Incompatible Timesharing System.^article^ ^|^ ^about^
I believe this same keyboard is why certain Vim keybindings are the way they are, like the arrow keys were on hjkl,