Re: OSX Meta bound to Esc!

[Konrad Hinsen <konrad.hinsen@laposte.net>]

In article <m21xq1yhcj.fsf@bluesteel.grierwhite.com>,
 posts@grierwhite.com (Christopher J. White) wrote:

> I've been using emacs for for than a decade and I've used nothing
> *but* the Esc key for all M-<key> combinations.  I was actually
> surprised to find out after years of use that it was possible to to
> M-<key> another way.  I may be remembering incorrectly, but wasn't
> Esc the original meta key in VT-100 days?

I think DEC (the inventor of the VT-100) meant the escape key to be used 
as it is in Emacs, and used it in the same way in its VMS editor.

Every now and then, I find myself facing a strange keyboard on a strange 
machine, and then I am happy to be able to use ESC to work with Emacs. I 
hope it won't go away. For daily use, a proper Meta key is of course 
nice to have.

I have probably missed the start of this thread, but I am a bit 
surprised about it. Even the non-windowing emacs that Apple ships with 
MacOS X uses the option key as the meta key (they couldn't use the 
command key as that is used by the terminal). Nobody *has* to use ESC on 
a Mac.

Konrad (now with three Emacs installations on his iBook)