From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Path: news.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Xah Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.help Subject: origin of the Meta key Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008 17:15:36 -0700 (PDT) Organization: http://groups.google.com Message-ID: <6dbf5b52-af69-4517-ae82-6dbed45492b5@s20g2000prd.googlegroups.com> References: <0ded5ecd-f5f6-4a8e-9d19-f61bf0401022@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com> <86hcad9ar4.fsf@lifelogs.com> <0bb45e96-f9f3-4451-a457-004bb5930c76@p10g2000prf.googlegroups.com> <927b0c4a-3de2-4be5-b86a-7ffacc4d718e@v1g2000pra.googlegroups.com> <88821130-f989-49ac-b8b1-e3cb2f5c5271@1g2000pre.googlegroups.com> <880cfe65-c525-46f7-a2e7-f76aa1168015@i20g2000prf.googlegroups.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: lo.gmane.org Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=UTF-8 Content-Transfer-Encoding: quoted-printable X-Trace: ger.gmane.org 1219538473 1679 80.91.229.12 (24 Aug 2008 00:41:13 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@ger.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:41:13 +0000 (UTC) To: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org Original-X-From: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Sun Aug 24 02:42:06 2008 Return-path: Envelope-to: geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org Original-Received: from lists.gnu.org ([199.232.76.165]) by lo.gmane.org with esmtp (Exim 4.50) id 1KX3fl-0006Z9-44 for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sun, 24 Aug 2008 02:41:37 +0200 Original-Received: from localhost ([127.0.0.1]:57175 helo=lists.gnu.org) by lists.gnu.org with esmtp (Exim 4.43) id 1KX3en-0000FL-3c for geh-help-gnu-emacs@m.gmane.org; Sat, 23 Aug 2008 20:40:37 -0400 Original-Path: news.stanford.edu!newsfeed.stanford.edu!postnews.google.com!s20g2000prd.googlegroups.com!not-for-mail Original-Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.lang.lisp Original-Lines: 37 Original-NNTP-Posting-Host: 24.6.185.159 Original-X-Trace: posting.google.com 1219536936 12799 127.0.0.1 (24 Aug 2008 00:15:36 GMT) Original-X-Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Original-NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 24 Aug 2008 00:15:36 +0000 (UTC) Complaints-To: groups-abuse@google.com Injection-Info: s20g2000prd.googlegroups.com; posting-host=24.6.185.159; posting-account=bRPKjQoAAACxZsR8_VPXCX27T2YcsyMA User-Agent: G2/1.0 X-HTTP-UserAgent: Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; U; PPC Mac OS X 10_4_11; en) AppleWebKit/525.18 (KHTML, like Gecko) Version/3.1.2 Safari/525.22, gzip(gfe), gzip(gfe) Original-Xref: news.stanford.edu gnu.emacs.help:161587 comp.lang.lisp:251162 X-BeenThere: help-gnu-emacs@gnu.org X-Mailman-Version: 2.1.5 Precedence: list List-Id: Users list for the GNU Emacs text editor List-Unsubscribe: , List-Archive: List-Post: List-Help: List-Subscribe: , Original-Sender: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Errors-To: help-gnu-emacs-bounces+geh-help-gnu-emacs=m.gmane.org@gnu.org Xref: news.gmane.org gmane.emacs.help:56931 Archived-At: On Aug 23, 2:41 pm, Barry Margolin wrote: > Nope, you have it wrong. Meta came from the SAIL keyboard at Stanford > AI Lab, developed in 1971. This was more than a decade before Sun was > founded. Of course, the Sun founders came from Stanford, so they were > undoubtedly familiar with this keyboard, and the diamond key was > presumably put there to serve the same function. Similarly with Apple's > command key. > > http://www.stanford.edu/~learnest/sailaway.htm > > http://infolab.stanford.edu/pub/voy/museum/pictures > /display/1-6-RAIL-keybd.jpg Thanks for this informative post! Quote from the article: =C2=ABA fancier display system, installed at SAIL in 1971, put a terminal using a television monitor on everyone's desk. SAIL was apparently the first system in the world that put terminals in offices -- before that, the few computer displays that existed were kept in "display rooms." This display system also included an advanced keyboard that introduced the "Meta" key and other features to facilitate touch- typing. That keyboard design was picked up promptly by MIT and Carnegie-Mellon University and later by Apple, whose Command key is a direct descendent of the Meta key on the SAIL keyboard.=C2=BB i did a quick google image search but didn't find more photos... is here more info about this keyboard? or other doc about the origin of the Meta? Xah =E2=88=91 http://xahlee.org/ =E2=98=84