Keyboard on Symbolics LISP Engineering

Enhanced X11 Keyboard

Wed, 20 Jul 2016 04:15:00 +0000

Well, after living with the default keyboard mapping for Genera under X-Windows, I decided to make an optimized one for an 87-key ANSI layout. The design goals were:

Utilize all the 16 top row keys efficiently, with most common functions in logical places
Utilize the 6-key quadrant for other common functions
Leave the arrow keys for cursor motion (because even though I have been using Emacs for at least 26 years I like my arrow keys)

Some of the important things that these led me to were:

Genera Xquartz Keyboard

Sun, 17 Jul 2016 19:42:01 +0000

It has taken some effort, but I finally created a reasonable (and close-to-default) keyboard layout and mapping for Genera for using a modern, 87-key “tenkeyless” keyboard under Xquartz. I became reasonably familiar (at a reading level) with Flavors and Genera’s X implementation while reverse engineering all this stuff. I also used the apropos function a lot, of course.

This layout stays very close to the default one provided by Genera while adding a few tweaks such as:

Repairing Symbolics 3600 Keyboard

Wed, 22 Jun 2016 14:09:40 +0000

When I purchased the XL1201, it came with a Model 3600 keyboard. Unfortunately, several keys didn’t work, including both hypers, and the left control and super. I disassembled it and couldn’t see anything obvious wrong, so I assumed the key switches went bad. However, this keyboard uses hall effect switches, which have no electrical moving parts. (The keypress moves a magnet, which is sensed by an unmoving electrical component.) So, there aren’t many things to break. I put it back together to deal with later.