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Comment by bdavbdav | Hacker News Reader

At least we get cmd and control as separate keys still, which makes copy/paste/… in a terminal a breeze, without either needing to sacrifice terminal control keys, or remember to use different c/p sequences in different scenarios.

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I work primarily on Macs, but also have Windows machines on my desk. Switching to Windows, I always have to pause and think, "Wait… I'm supposed to press what to copy again?"

Conflating meta keys with control keys is one of the more pernicious abominations Microsoft saddled on the tech world.

Shift - Control - Meta - Super - Hyper. Each has its place.

Don't forget the Terminal key, so you can summon the elevator with Terminal-E and buzz open the door in the elevator lobby with Terminal-D, all without getting up out of your chair in front of your Lisp Machine.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40634902

Guy L Steele wrote "Double Bucky" in 1978:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=14372023

Double Bucky

(Sung to the tune of "Rubber Duckie")

    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, a 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!

(For those of you who are interested, the term "bucky bits" comes from Niklaus Wirth, known as "bucky" to friends, who suggested that an extra bit be added to terminal codes on 36 bit machines for use by screen editors.)

The UniPress Emacs icon was a unicorn, because after you held down all the modifier keys with both hands, you need a horn on your head to press the actual letter.

So "Uni[Corn Key]Press Emacs".

You can see it in the lower left corner of this screen snapshot, but the horn is covered by a tabbed emacs window:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tab_(interface)#/media/File:Hy...

Sun format Unicorn icon from the UniPress Emacs sources:

https://github.com/SimHacker/NeMACS/blob/main/src/D.sun/unic...

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