Re: KEYBOARD

[JLK@MIT-AI]

CC: GLS at MIT-AI, GJS at MIT-AI, CARL at MIT-AI, HENRY at MIT-AI
Since the current consensus is to have lowercase parens, would anyone consider
it a gross screw to use the typewriter standard for the symbols above 1 thru 0
(This means @ above 2, ^ above 6, & above 7, * above 8, ( above 9 and ) above 0).
The rationale for this is that (a) lowercase parens make the placement of
shifted parens less important; and (b) almost all commercially available terminals
are going over to this standard (including DEC, HP, Tektronix, IBM, CONCEPT-100,
etc, etc.) so that those of us that have occassion to use such terminals are
screwed somewhat less.  I realize that this would probably be a screw for users
of the current AI keyboards, but perhaps enough $'s are available to replace
them with the new ones??

Some benefits, in addition to lowercase parens, of this layout are
lowercase quote and backquote.  Given up are lowercase @ and ^, and
+ and * are slightly less convenient to type.

This keyboard layout is going to be finalized very shortly.  The latest
layout will be posted in the LISPM room.