Commercial Users of Functional Programming Workshop (CUFP) 2008
Functional Programming As a Means, Not an End
Call for Participation
Sponsored by SIGPLAN
Co-located with ICFP 2008
__________________________________________________________________
26 September 2008
Victoria, Canada
Registration opens in late July through
http://www.icfpconference.org/icfp2008/
__________________________________________________________________
Functional languages have been under academic development for
over 25 years, and remain fertile ground for programming language
research. Recently, however, developers in industrial,
governmental, and open source projects have begun to use
functional programming successfully in practical applications.
In these settings, functional programming has often provided
dramatic leverage, including whole new ways of thinking about the
original problem.
The goal of the CUFP workshop is to act as a voice for these users
of functional programming. The workshop supports the increasing
viability of functional programming in the commercial,
governmental, and open-source space by providing a forum for
professionals to share their experiences and ideas, whether those
ideas are related to business, management, or engineering. The
workshop is also designed to enable the formation and reinforcement
of relationships that further the commercial use of functional
programming. Providing user feedback to language designers and
implementors is not a primary goal of the workshop, though it will
be welcome if it occurs.
Program
CUFP 2008 will last a full day and feature a discussion session
and the following presentations:
Don Syme (Microsoft)
Invited Presentation: Why Microsoft is Investing in
Functional Programming
David Balaban (Amgen)
Minimizing the Immune Response to Functional Programming at
Amgen
Francesco Cesarini (Erlang Training and Consulting)
The Mobile Messaging Gateway, from Idea to Prototype to
Launch in 12 months
Jake Donham (Skydeck)
From OCaml to Javascript at Skydeck
Nick Gerakines (Yahoo)
Developing Erlang at Yahoo
Tom Hawkins (Eaton Corporation)
Controlling Hybrid Vehicles with Haskell
Bob Ippolito (Mochimedia)
Ad Serving with Erlang
Anil Madhavapeddy (Citrix)
Xen and the art of OCaml
Howard Mansell (Credit Suisse)
Quantitative Finance in F#
Jeff Polakow (Deutsche Bank)
Is Haskell ready for everyday computing?
David Pollak (Lift web framework)
Buy a Feature: an adventure in immutability and Actors
Gregory Wright (Antiope)
Functions to Junctions: Ultra Low Power Chip Design With
Some Help From Haskell
There will be no published proceedings, as the meeting is intended
to be more a discussion forum than a technical interchange.
See http://cufp.galois.com for more information, including
presentation abstracts and the most recent schedule information.
Program Committee
* Lennart Augustsson <lennart(dot)augustsson(at)gmail(dot)com>
* Matthias Blume <blume(at)tti-c(dot)org>
* Adam Granicz <granicz(dot)adam(at)intellifactory(dot)com>
* Jim Grundy(co-chair)<jim(dot)d(dot)grundy(at)intel(dot)com>
* Andy Martin <akmartin(at)us(dot)ibm(dot)com>
* Yaron Minsky <yminsky(at)janestcapital(dot)com>
* Simon Peyton Jones(co-chair)<simonpj(at)microsoft(dot)com>
* Ulf Wiger <ulf(dot)wiger(at)ericsson(dot)com>
This will be the fifth CUFP; see CUFP 2004 CUFP 2005, CUFP 2006,
and CUFP 2007 for information about the earlier meetings, including
reports from attendees and video of the most recent talks.
In article
<·············································@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu>,
Jim Grundy <··········@acm.org> wrote:
> Commercial Users of Functional Programming Workshop (CUFP) 2008
>
> Functional Programming As a Means, Not an End
>
> Call for Participation
>
> Sponsored by SIGPLAN
> Co-located with ICFP 2008
> __________________________________________________________________
>
> 26 September 2008
> Victoria, Canada
>
> Registration opens in late July through
> http://www.icfpconference.org/icfp2008/
> __________________________________________________________________
>
> Functional languages have been under academic development for
> over 25 years, and remain fertile ground for programming language
> research. Recently, however, developers in industrial,
> governmental, and open source projects have begun to use
> functional programming successfully in practical applications.
> In these settings, functional programming has often provided
> dramatic leverage, including whole new ways of thinking about the
> original problem.
There is no Lisp-topic included in the talks. Yet it is being posted
to comp.lang.lisp. It does not mention Lisp in the introduction
paragraph and the first paragraph mentions the Functional languages
have been under academic development for over 25 years
(which is both precise and not precise).
This seems to exclude Lisp from any academic development of
functional languages, since Lisp was under academic development
much earlier (1958-). Same for practical applications, those are known
for Lisp for a much longer time. Macsyma for example started
somewhen in 1968. So the introductory paragraph does disconnect
Functional languages from the Lisp heritage and still the author
posts to comp.lang.lisp.
I wonder what the conferences in the 80s with the title
'Lisp and Functional Programming' were about?
http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/lfp/index.html
Sussman/Steele published about Scheme (Scheme: An Interpreter for
Extended Lambda Calculus) in December 1975. That would be
almost 33 years ago. Joel Moses wrote about the FUNARG problem
in 1970. And so...
For me the introductory paragraph sounds strange. But that's
what one hears the a lot from the FP guys. On one side they
want to disconnect from the L-word and also want to have created
the more modern replacement.
I wonder what happened to FP 25 years ago?
Hindley-Milner algorithm was earlier (1978). Backus' FP was earlier
(his Turing-Award lecture 'Can programming be liberated from
the von Neumann style? A functional style and its algebra of programs'
http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs242/readings/backus.pdf
was 1977). ML appeared 1973 (according to Wikipedia).
So, what was 25 years ago?
> The goal of the CUFP workshop is to act as a voice for these users
> of functional programming. The workshop supports the increasing
> viability of functional programming in the commercial,
> governmental, and open-source space by providing a forum for
> professionals to share their experiences and ideas, whether those
> ideas are related to business, management, or engineering. The
> workshop is also designed to enable the formation and reinforcement
> of relationships that further the commercial use of functional
> programming. Providing user feedback to language designers and
> implementors is not a primary goal of the workshop, though it will
> be welcome if it occurs.
>
> Program
>
> CUFP 2008 will last a full day and feature a discussion session
> and the following presentations:
>
> Don Syme (Microsoft)
> Invited Presentation: Why Microsoft is Investing in
> Functional Programming
>
> David Balaban (Amgen)
> Minimizing the Immune Response to Functional Programming at
> Amgen
>
> Francesco Cesarini (Erlang Training and Consulting)
> The Mobile Messaging Gateway, from Idea to Prototype to
> Launch in 12 months
>
> Jake Donham (Skydeck)
> From OCaml to Javascript at Skydeck
>
> Nick Gerakines (Yahoo)
> Developing Erlang at Yahoo
>
> Tom Hawkins (Eaton Corporation)
> Controlling Hybrid Vehicles with Haskell
>
> Bob Ippolito (Mochimedia)
> Ad Serving with Erlang
>
> Anil Madhavapeddy (Citrix)
> Xen and the art of OCaml
>
> Howard Mansell (Credit Suisse)
> Quantitative Finance in F#
>
> Jeff Polakow (Deutsche Bank)
> Is Haskell ready for everyday computing?
>
> David Pollak (Lift web framework)
> Buy a Feature: an adventure in immutability and Actors
>
> Gregory Wright (Antiope)
> Functions to Junctions: Ultra Low Power Chip Design With
> Some Help From Haskell
>
> There will be no published proceedings, as the meeting is intended
> to be more a discussion forum than a technical interchange.
>
> See http://cufp.galois.com for more information, including
> presentation abstracts and the most recent schedule information.
>
> Program Committee
>
> * Lennart Augustsson <lennart(dot)augustsson(at)gmail(dot)com>
> * Matthias Blume <blume(at)tti-c(dot)org>
> * Adam Granicz <granicz(dot)adam(at)intellifactory(dot)com>
> * Jim Grundy(co-chair)<jim(dot)d(dot)grundy(at)intel(dot)com>
> * Andy Martin <akmartin(at)us(dot)ibm(dot)com>
> * Yaron Minsky <yminsky(at)janestcapital(dot)com>
> * Simon Peyton Jones(co-chair)<simonpj(at)microsoft(dot)com>
> * Ulf Wiger <ulf(dot)wiger(at)ericsson(dot)com>
>
> This will be the fifth CUFP; see CUFP 2004 CUFP 2005, CUFP 2006,
> and CUFP 2007 for information about the earlier meetings, including
> reports from attendees and video of the most recent talks.
--
http://lispm.dyndns.org/
From: Jim Grundy
Subject: Re: Commercial Users of Functional Programming Workshop Call for Participation
Date:
Message-ID: <Sprik.18$wS4.16@trnddc03>
Hi Rainer
There may not be any Lisp talks in the program, but we welcome
participation from members of the Lisp community. We hope Lispers will
attend, contribute to the discussions, submit presentation proposals for
future CUFPs and even get involved in organizing future CUFPs.
Kind regards
Jim Grundy
Rainer Joswig wrote:
> In article
> <·············································@mailman.srv.cs.cmu.edu>,
> Jim Grundy <··········@acm.org> wrote:
>
>> Commercial Users of Functional Programming Workshop (CUFP) 2008
>>
>> Functional Programming As a Means, Not an End
>>
>> Call for Participation
>>
>> Sponsored by SIGPLAN
>> Co-located with ICFP 2008
>> __________________________________________________________________
>>
>> 26 September 2008
>> Victoria, Canada
>>
>> Registration opens in late July through
>> http://www.icfpconference.org/icfp2008/
>> __________________________________________________________________
>>
>> Functional languages have been under academic development for
>> over 25 years, and remain fertile ground for programming language
>> research. Recently, however, developers in industrial,
>> governmental, and open source projects have begun to use
>> functional programming successfully in practical applications.
>> In these settings, functional programming has often provided
>> dramatic leverage, including whole new ways of thinking about the
>> original problem.
>
> There is no Lisp-topic included in the talks. Yet it is being posted
> to comp.lang.lisp. It does not mention Lisp in the introduction
> paragraph and the first paragraph mentions the Functional languages
> have been under academic development for over 25 years
> (which is both precise and not precise).
> This seems to exclude Lisp from any academic development of
> functional languages, since Lisp was under academic development
> much earlier (1958-). Same for practical applications, those are known
> for Lisp for a much longer time. Macsyma for example started
> somewhen in 1968. So the introductory paragraph does disconnect
> Functional languages from the Lisp heritage and still the author
> posts to comp.lang.lisp.
> I wonder what the conferences in the 80s with the title
> 'Lisp and Functional Programming' were about?
> http://www.informatik.uni-trier.de/~ley/db/conf/lfp/index.html
> Sussman/Steele published about Scheme (Scheme: An Interpreter for
> Extended Lambda Calculus) in December 1975. That would be
> almost 33 years ago. Joel Moses wrote about the FUNARG problem
> in 1970. And so...
>
> For me the introductory paragraph sounds strange. But that's
> what one hears the a lot from the FP guys. On one side they
> want to disconnect from the L-word and also want to have created
> the more modern replacement.
>
> I wonder what happened to FP 25 years ago?
>
> Hindley-Milner algorithm was earlier (1978). Backus' FP was earlier
> (his Turing-Award lecture 'Can programming be liberated from
> the von Neumann style? A functional style and its algebra of programs'
> http://www.stanford.edu/class/cs242/readings/backus.pdf
> was 1977). ML appeared 1973 (according to Wikipedia).
>
> So, what was 25 years ago?
>
>> The goal of the CUFP workshop is to act as a voice for these users
>> of functional programming. The workshop supports the increasing
>> viability of functional programming in the commercial,
>> governmental, and open-source space by providing a forum for
>> professionals to share their experiences and ideas, whether those
>> ideas are related to business, management, or engineering. The
>> workshop is also designed to enable the formation and reinforcement
>> of relationships that further the commercial use of functional
>> programming. Providing user feedback to language designers and
>> implementors is not a primary goal of the workshop, though it will
>> be welcome if it occurs.
>>
>> Program
>>
>> CUFP 2008 will last a full day and feature a discussion session
>> and the following presentations:
>>
>> Don Syme (Microsoft)
>> Invited Presentation: Why Microsoft is Investing in
>> Functional Programming
>>
>> David Balaban (Amgen)
>> Minimizing the Immune Response to Functional Programming at
>> Amgen
>>
>> Francesco Cesarini (Erlang Training and Consulting)
>> The Mobile Messaging Gateway, from Idea to Prototype to
>> Launch in 12 months
>>
>> Jake Donham (Skydeck)
>> From OCaml to Javascript at Skydeck
>>
>> Nick Gerakines (Yahoo)
>> Developing Erlang at Yahoo
>>
>> Tom Hawkins (Eaton Corporation)
>> Controlling Hybrid Vehicles with Haskell
>>
>> Bob Ippolito (Mochimedia)
>> Ad Serving with Erlang
>>
>> Anil Madhavapeddy (Citrix)
>> Xen and the art of OCaml
>>
>> Howard Mansell (Credit Suisse)
>> Quantitative Finance in F#
>>
>> Jeff Polakow (Deutsche Bank)
>> Is Haskell ready for everyday computing?
>>
>> David Pollak (Lift web framework)
>> Buy a Feature: an adventure in immutability and Actors
>>
>> Gregory Wright (Antiope)
>> Functions to Junctions: Ultra Low Power Chip Design With
>> Some Help From Haskell
>>
>> There will be no published proceedings, as the meeting is intended
>> to be more a discussion forum than a technical interchange.
>>
>> See http://cufp.galois.com for more information, including
>> presentation abstracts and the most recent schedule information.
>>
>> Program Committee
>>
>> * Lennart Augustsson <lennart(dot)augustsson(at)gmail(dot)com>
>> * Matthias Blume <blume(at)tti-c(dot)org>
>> * Adam Granicz <granicz(dot)adam(at)intellifactory(dot)com>
>> * Jim Grundy(co-chair)<jim(dot)d(dot)grundy(at)intel(dot)com>
>> * Andy Martin <akmartin(at)us(dot)ibm(dot)com>
>> * Yaron Minsky <yminsky(at)janestcapital(dot)com>
>> * Simon Peyton Jones(co-chair)<simonpj(at)microsoft(dot)com>
>> * Ulf Wiger <ulf(dot)wiger(at)ericsson(dot)com>
>>
>> This will be the fifth CUFP; see CUFP 2004 CUFP 2005, CUFP 2006,
>> and CUFP 2007 for information about the earlier meetings, including
>> reports from attendees and video of the most recent talks.
>
From: Kaz Kylheku
Subject: Re: Commercial Users of Functional Programming Workshop Call for Participation
Date:
Message-ID: <20080725171051.331@gmail.com>
On 2008-07-25, Jim Grundy <··········@acm.org> wrote:
> Hi Rainer
>
> There may not be any Lisp talks in the program, but we welcome
> participation from members of the Lisp community.
Are members of the C++ and Visual Basic communities unwelcome?
If so, why?
If not, should you not include comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.basic.visual?
From: Jim Grundy
Subject: Re: Commercial Users of Functional Programming Workshop Call for Participation
Date:
Message-ID: <488A7A18.4010607@acm.org>
Hi Kaz
Everyone who has experience to share with
commercial/governmental/open-source application of functional
programming is welcome. Lisp has a long tradition in this space, hence
the approach to this group. C++ and VB less so since other programming
paradigms are their primary means of expression. I know little about
VB, but I do know that there are many C++ programmers who are interested
in functional programming. And one can - with some effort - program in
a functional style in C++. There is some serious functional programming
fun to be had in C++ with, say, the boost lambda library. Furthermore,
the interface of functional programming and commercial reality often
involves interfacing C++ with software written in functional languages -
I've had to do no small amount of that myself. So, while we are
interested in experiences of people in the C++ (and VB) communities we
are interested in their functional programming experiences. It is most
likely that we'll pick up those people by notifying the places where
functional programmers hang out. If we hit the C++ and VB communities
directly we'll be spamming a large number of people of which only a
fairly small percentage will share our interest in functional programming.
Of course, if you feel strongly that the C++ or visual basic groups have
many readers who are interested in functional programming then feel free
to cross post.
Kind regards
Jim Grundy
Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> On 2008-07-25, Jim Grundy <··········@acm.org> wrote:
>> Hi Rainer
>>
>> There may not be any Lisp talks in the program, but we welcome
>> participation from members of the Lisp community.
>
> Are members of the C++ and Visual Basic communities unwelcome?
>
> If so, why?
>
> If not, should you not include comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.basic.visual?
You can admit now that you posted this here so Harrop don't miss this
event
On Jul 26, 3:14 am, Jim Grundy <··········@acm.org> wrote:
> Hi Kaz
>
> Everyone who has experience to share with
> commercial/governmental/open-source application of functional
> programming is welcome. Lisp has a long tradition in this space, hence
> the approach to this group. C++ and VB less so since other programming
> paradigms are their primary means of expression. I know little about
> VB, but I do know that there are many C++ programmers who are interested
> in functional programming. And one can - with some effort - program in
> a functional style in C++. There is some serious functional programming
> fun to be had in C++ with, say, the boost lambda library. Furthermore,
> the interface of functional programming and commercial reality often
> involves interfacing C++ with software written in functional languages -
> I've had to do no small amount of that myself. So, while we are
> interested in experiences of people in the C++ (and VB) communities we
> are interested in their functional programming experiences. It is most
> likely that we'll pick up those people by notifying the places where
> functional programmers hang out. If we hit the C++ and VB communities
> directly we'll be spamming a large number of people of which only a
> fairly small percentage will share our interest in functional programming.
>
> Of course, if you feel strongly that the C++ or visual basic groups have
> many readers who are interested in functional programming then feel free
> to cross post.
>
> Kind regards
>
> Jim Grundy
>
> Kaz Kylheku wrote:
> > On 2008-07-25, Jim Grundy <··········@acm.org> wrote:
> >> Hi Rainer
>
> >> There may not be any Lisp talks in the program, but we welcome
> >> participation from members of the Lisp community.
>
> > Are members of the C++ and Visual Basic communities unwelcome?
>
> > If so, why?
>
> > If not, should you not include comp.lang.c++ and comp.lang.basic.visual?
Dear Rainer Joswig,
Why don't you put your knowledge of lisp history on Wikipedia instead
of doing your sour grapes syndrome here?
I know you have added good lisp info in Wikipedia, but i think you
could do more. Channel your habit of citing lisp historical documents
into Wikipedia's lisp articles on the history section, would be quite
proper. And will have far more beneficial impact on those interested
in CL and lisp heritage than being argumentative here.
For example, recently you discussed lisp machine's keyboard's use. I
am, somewhat of a expert on the related issues of key macro and
keyboard interface and keyboard hardware, and in the case of
Wikipedia, i have read tens of articles there related to all sort of
keyboards, keys, keyboard shortcuts, and their history. When i read
your writing on that lisp machine keyboard, i found insight on the
historical development of emacs's shortcuts. (note here, i proably
know more about emacs history, unix history, gnu history, than say
most regulars in comp.lang.lisp or comp.emacs. I'm not sure i want to
name names, but some regulars here that has i presume years of lisp
coding experience, are quite stupid in some aspects. (as a example of
a characteristic thought pattern of these people... one can image they
are the type of guys who said computers should never adopt the mouse
(~1990), GUI (~1990), the web should not commercialize (~1995), web
should not have cookies (~1997), css or javascript (~1998), source
code should never have syntax coloring (mid 1990s), blogging is for
teens (early 2000s), Wikipedia is for morons (~2004). In their quite
strong opinion, these type of features or changes are a waste of
computing cycle, fad, or for kids or dumbing down society, when these
things were in their early days and their future is not certain.))
So, it would be very fruitful and proper, if you could add more lisp
history info to Wikipedia, instead of fighting for Common Lisp dogma
by showcasing your lisp history knowledge here.
Btw, possibly the lots lisp history i read on Wikipedia are mainly
contributed by you and others here in fact. In that case, great, and
thanks.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
On 27 Jul., 12:40, ·······@gmail.com" <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Rainer Joswig,
>
> Why don't you put your knowledge of lisp history on Wikipedia instead
> of doing your sour grapes syndrome here?
Dear Xah!
I was a bit curious what the organizer of that workshop thinks
about the L-word - since it was kind of strangely addressed towards
this newsgroup.
Generally I'm not sure if there is much of
FP theory insight is coming out of the CL community, but there
is a constant flow of new applications and libraries.
Implementations are getting new features all the time.
So, there might be some interest of people to present Lisp apps
at such a meeting. Though many apps will use functional programming,
they will usually also use other paradigms.
> I know you have added good lisp info in Wikipedia, but i think you
> could do more. Channel your habit of citing lisp historical documents
> into Wikipedia's lisp articles on the history section, would be quite
> proper. And will have far more beneficial impact on those interested
> in CL and lisp heritage than being argumentative here.
I'm not really that keen to contribute to Wikipedia. I'm doing it
from time to time. But not regularly. In some
German article somebody completely distorted the CL presentation.
Its kind of time consuming to get that article back into shape.
There are simply too many people editing which don't have
a clue or have some really strange ideas - at least for some of German
pages.
> For example, recently you discussed lisp machine's keyboard's use. I
> am, somewhat of a expert on the related issues of key macro and
> keyboard interface and keyboard hardware, and in the case of
> Wikipedia, i have read tens of articles there related to all sort of
> keyboards, keys, keyboard shortcuts, and their history. When i read
> your writing on that lisp machine keyboard, i found insight on the
> historical development of emacs's shortcuts.
People might be interested that thanks to Hans Huebner it is now
possible to use the Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with a modern
USB-equipped computer. Hans has put together an adapter. I bought
one of those adapters for 30 Euros recently. Currently typing with
the Symbolics keyboard attached to my MacBook Pro.
See:
http://lispm.dyndns.org/news?ID=NEWS-2008-07-27-1
Basic Emacs commands even work when editing this article in Google
Groups -
which is kind of fun...
> (note here, i proably
> know more about emacs history, unix history, gnu history, than say
> most regulars in comp.lang.lisp or comp.emacs. I'm not sure i want to
> name names, but some regulars here that has i presume years of lisp
> coding experience, are quite stupid in some aspects. (as a example of
> a characteristic thought pattern of these people... one can image they
> are the type of guys who said computers should never adopt the mouse
> (~1990), GUI (~1990), the web should not commercialize (~1995), web
> should not have cookies (~1997), css or javascript (~1998), source
> code should never have syntax coloring (mid 1990s), blogging is for
> teens (early 2000s), Wikipedia is for morons (~2004). In their quite
> strong opinion, these type of features or changes are a waste of
> computing cycle, fad, or for kids or dumbing down society, when these
> things were in their early days and their future is not certain.))
Well, several of those things you are listing have been introduced
first (or very early) by Lisp users. The MIT built in
1974/75 one of the first personal workstations with large
bitmap display, proportional fonts, mouse, specialized keyboard,
networking and a Lisp operating system: the MIT CONS Lisp Machine.
When such Lisp Machines were shown a few years later at a big
AI conference, people were totally ignoring that it was a Lisp
Machine,
they were fascinated by the mouse and windows thing - that was new and
unseen.
Xerox also built Lisp Machines in the 70s with GUI, mouse and
networking.
One of the first interesting Hypertext systems was NoteCards,
written in InterLisp on Xerox machines. NoteCards influenced
HyperCard,
which later influenced the Wiki idea. Symbolics built the
first large scale Hypertext publishing system. Symbolics had the
first .com domain. There were many more innovative ideas and
applications
coming out of Lisp research. Since the Lisp community is very diverse,
you get both: the users satisfied with a terminal and a Lisp prompt
and the users demanding cutting edge tools for incremental software
development.
> So, it would be very fruitful and proper, if you could add more lisp
> history info to Wikipedia, instead of fighting for Common Lisp dogma
> by showcasing your lisp history knowledge here.
>
> Btw, possibly the lots lisp history i read on Wikipedia are mainly
> contributed by you and others here in fact. In that case, great, and
> thanks.
Well, actually I like a bit more to add content to my own website
which is written in Lisp, using CL-HTTP and LispWorks.
>
> Xah
> ∑http://xahlee.org/
>
> ☄
Rainer Joswig wrote:
«
People might be interested that thanks to Hans Huebner it is now
possible to use the Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with a modern
USB-equipped computer. Hans has put together an adapter. I bought
one of those adapters for 30 Euros recently. Currently typing with
the Symbolics keyboard attached to my MacBook Pro.
See:
http://lispm.dyndns.org/news?ID=NEWS-2008-07-27-1
»
You crazy.
What do you get out of using a lisp machine keyboard?
i read here and there that you maintain or run some lisp OS
(Geneva?)...
how exactly you run it? as a emulator inside OSX? Or OSX as some type
of terminal connected to a lisp machine?
---------------
One of the comment you made about the keyboard: «programmer who need a
keyboard with excellent ergonomics», i think is silly. No keyboard
ergonomic expert will say that keyboard is remotely ergonomic.
It's not split or curved for each hand. The Control key on both side
have different distance to index fingers on the home row. No
dedicated, by its own location, page up and page down keys...
The ONLY, possible, thing that can be considered a improvement, is the
Rubout key on the left of A key. I presume it functions as the Delete
key. Still, it's not much of a improvement. It fixed one flow by
moving a frequently used key closer, but made it worse by having the
pinky to press it.
Besides the physical aspects of ergonomics, now as to the functions:
there are many extra modifier and special keys, but in comparison to
today's keyboard, it doesn't have the 12 function keys. (further, it
doesn't have a bunch of app launching special buttons that's becoming
a standard.) So, all in all, it doesn't necessarily have more special
keys where you can map to various special purposes for operating
arbitrary application or OS.
Btw, how do you use those Square, Circle, Triangle keys? It would be
great to hear you give a complete write up on how you use this
keyboard. Such as how you use each of the special keys there, and
things like what contex? i.e. what you do in emacs, and in say FireFox
or Safari in OSX, and when you are connected to a lisp machine.
Rainer wrote:
«Basic Emacs commands even work when editing this article in Google
Groups -
which is kind of fun...
»
What do you mean?
Btw, can you take a larger photo so all key's lables are clear to
view? and could i have permission to use it on my site? With link and
credit of course.
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
>> Basic Emacs commands even work when editing this article
>> in Google Groups - which is kind of fun...
>
> What do you mean?
I assume just because he's using a Mac (C-A, C-B, etc. work
in text fields).
> Btw, can you take a larger photo so all key's lables are
> clear to view?
If you've checked Google image search, you've seen it,
but http://sts.tu-harburg.decenturl.com/lispm-keyboard (from
http://sts.tu-harburg.decenturl.com/symbolics-lispm-info),
has legible labels, despite its blurriness.
--
Aaron
http://arundelo.com/
In article
<····································@a6g2000prm.googlegroups.com>,
·······@gmail.com" <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rainer Joswig wrote:
> «
> People might be interested that thanks to Hans Huebner it is now
> possible to use the Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with a modern
> USB-equipped computer. Hans has put together an adapter. I bought
> one of those adapters for 30 Euros recently. Currently typing with
> the Symbolics keyboard attached to my MacBook Pro.
> See:
> http://lispm.dyndns.org/news?ID=NEWS-2008-07-27-1
> »
>
> You crazy.
>
> What do you get out of using a lisp machine keyboard?
It's fun. I've used a lot of different keyboards over the years and this
is one which I like (there are others I like too - like old Siemens
keyboards with their quality key mechanisms). I think
Hans had no problems finding new owners for the keyboard
adapters he had built.
> i read here and there that you maintain or run some lisp OS
> (Geneva?)...
Genera.
> how exactly you run it? as a emulator inside OSX? Or OSX as some type
> of terminal connected to a lisp machine?
There is an eumlator which runs on 64bit x86 Linux, but I have also
a real Lisp machine here which I can use. The latter is used via an X11 server
on any client machine (one can also telnet into the Lisp Machine).
X11 brings the console to the client machine(s).
> ---------------
>
> One of the comment you made about the keyboard: «programmer who need a
> keyboard with excellent ergonomics», i think is silly. No keyboard
> ergonomic expert will say that keyboard is remotely ergonomic.
>
> It's not split or curved for each hand. The Control key on both side
> have different distance to index fingers on the home row. No
> dedicated, by its own location, page up and page down keys...
>
> The ONLY, possible, thing that can be considered a improvement, is the
> Rubout key on the left of A key. I presume it functions as the Delete
> key. Still, it's not much of a improvement. It fixed one flow by
> moving a frequently used key closer, but made it worse by having the
> pinky to press it.
(warning to readers: this is all esoteric and old Lisp lore. If you are
not interested in this stuff, don't read. The author also uses
other computers and operating systems and does not (completely)
live in the past. He just likes to keep a bit of the knowledge
about a lost species of computers at least a bit alive) - end of warning.
Personally I'm not a user of split or curved keyboards. I've used one
split keyboard years ago and never liked it.
The Symbolics keyboard
* has a very compact design (hands don't have to move to remote parts
of the keyboard to press tiny keys)
* has quality key mechanics (not comparable to the most of the keys
that you get nowadays)
* is very solid and very heavy. I't does not have the cheap feel
of many keyboards out there.
* groups the keys in an inner zone where you have letters and numbers.
the keys have the normal size. The key rows also have different angles.
The second zone are the keys around the inner zone. These outer keys
are all very large, so they are easy to hit. This gives a very different
feel. They feel more like buttons that wire the brain to the machine.
That feel is hard to describe. But imagine that you are typing something
to a dialog and you need help. You would hit the HELP key which is
more like a button. It is not a small help key on some extended size keyboard.
The combination of console, keyboard, computer and the OS is especially
important. It is useful to see each in isolation and optimize those.
But it is also important to see the whole chain. Imagine an
Emacs that runs on the metal without a multitude of layers of OS, emulation,
drivers, virtual machines and so on. Zmacs on the Lispm runs on the metal.
You press a key and the key press immediately gets you into
Lisp land, where the key press gets handled and causes a Zmacs
function to be called. Even the keyboard interrupt handlers
is Lisp. So you get the illusion that the large key is a button
that calls a Lisp function rather directly. I'm not sure
if the point gets over, but with modern computers one often
gets many layers between the cause and the action. Most of
there layers are either invisible to the user or opaque. Not
here, you can see inside (if you want). This must be even more
amazing for the developers who have designed the software
and can interact with it (inspect, change, ...)
while it is running.
I've written some longer text about how this interacts with the users flow
of action when using the development environment - but that text is not
polished...
* has the rubout key is to the left and does the normal delete character thing.
How useful that position is, is easy to see when you have to switch
to a different keyboard and one constantly tries to use that key.
The RUBOUT key is at that position much more useful than for example
the caps lock key that most keyboards have there. Actually the
CAPS LOCK key is placed at the lower left, since it is mostly no used
much and occupies valuable space. I also hear from some people
that they have assigned the CAPS LOCK key to a different functionality
on their (conventional) keyboards.
* tons of shift keys. Usually the red keys are all shift keys.
Shift, Control, meta, super. Hyper for user commands. Symbol for special characters.
LOCAL for console operations (loudness, brightness, ...).
* has two mode keys: caps lock and mode lock. The mode lock key is used by the development environment.
For example the profiler might only collect function call information when the mode lock
is active.
* has several prefix keys (Select, Function, ...).
The SELECT key is for application switching. SELECT e brings up the next
editor window and rotates between them. SELECT control-e brings
up a new editor window. l=listener, t=terminal, x=flavor eXaminer,
p=Peek, f=file system tool, d=documentation, ...
The FUNCTION key controls the window system and the processes on the machine
(switches windows, reverses the video, halts processes, ...).
> Besides the physical aspects of ergonomics, now as to the functions:
> there are many extra modifier and special keys, but in comparison to
> today's keyboard, it doesn't have the 12 function keys.
I'm not a fan of those function keys. The symbolics keyboard has three user-reserved function
keys square, triangle and circle.
> (further, it
> doesn't have a bunch of app launching special buttons that's becoming
> a standard.)
Actually I prefer the SELECT button for app launching/switching. Works great.
Again one of those mechanisms that is kind of addictive. Especially
since the window system had very low switching time between windows (the
contents were saved as bitmaps and just the bitmap needs to be redrawn).
> So, all in all, it doesn't necessarily have more special
> keys where you can map to various special purposes for operating
> arbitrary application or OS.
Mostly the special purpose of the keyboard is software development (in Lisp
or other languages). So there are some keys that have functions in the development
environment (which is everywhere). COMPLETE for examples is a context
sensitive completion key. SUSPEND gets a sub Lisp REPL. RESUME resumes
the command loop / repl one level higher (or just calls the resume restart).
Then there is a colon key (since colons are used a lot in Lisp symbols),
there are ( and ) as keys. There is a refresh key to refresh window contents,
there is a ESCAPE key for command histories, ...
> Btw, how do you use those Square, Circle, Triangle keys?
Those are usually set by the user (which often is a software developer)
during development for special tasks.
For example when I have a GUI application under development, I
would assign SELECT SQUARE to bring this app to the front (or create it).
Or in Zmacs one might temporarily assign a keyboard macro to it.
> It would be
> great to hear you give a complete write up on how you use this
> keyboard. Such as how you use each of the special keys there, and
> things like what contex? i.e. what you do in emacs, and in say FireFox
> or Safari in OSX, and when you are connected to a lisp machine.
See above for some information. More I guess could be taken from
the manual or the keyboard & command reference booklet.
>
> Rainer wrote:
> «Basic Emacs commands even work when editing this article in Google
> Groups -
> which is kind of fun...
> »
>
> What do you mean?
Mac OS X uses some Emacs commands in the text fields and also in the web browser.
control-a moves to the beginning of the line, control-t exchanges characters, etc.
>
> Btw, can you take a larger photo so all key's lables are clear to
> view? and could i have permission to use it on my site? With link and
> credit of course.
Here is one. Use it if you like.
I'll see if I make a new picture the next days...
http://lispm.dyndns.org/lisp/pics/102-0227_IMG.JPG
--
http://lispm.dyndns.org/
Rainer Joswig <······@lisp.de> writes:
> In article
> <····································@a6g2000prm.googlegroups.com>,
> ·······@gmail.com" <······@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Rainer Joswig wrote:
>> «
>> People might be interested that thanks to Hans Huebner it is now
>> possible to use the Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with a modern
>> USB-equipped computer. Hans has put together an adapter. I bought
>> one of those adapters for 30 Euros recently. Currently typing with
>> the Symbolics keyboard attached to my MacBook Pro.
>> See:
>> http://lispm.dyndns.org/news?ID=NEWS-2008-07-27-1
>> »
>>
>> You crazy.
>>
>> What do you get out of using a lisp machine keyboard?
>
> It's fun. I've used a lot of different keyboards over the years and
> this is one which I like (there are others I like too - like old
> Siemens keyboards with their quality key mechanisms). I think Hans
> had no problems finding new owners for the keyboard adapters he had
> built.
>
> <and lots more...>
Thanks for writing all that; I really appreciate it as a keyboard
geek.
Paul Donnelly <·············@sbcglobal.net> writes:
> Rainer Joswig <······@lisp.de> writes:
> [...]
> > It's fun. I've used a lot of different keyboards over the years
> > and this is one which I like (there are others I like too - like
> > old Siemens keyboards with their quality key mechanisms). I think
> > Hans had no problems finding new owners for the keyboard adapters
> > he had built.
> > <and lots more...>
>
> Thanks for writing all that; I really appreciate it as a keyboard
> geek.
In its day, I heard people seriously suggest that Symbolics should be
a keyboard vendor. A lot of people really adored those keyboards.
Although, like so many other Worse Is Better [1] phenomena, what won out
in the keyboard market was things that could be fit into a rectangular
box in modular ways. (The Symbolics keyboard, by contrast, was designed
around where your fingers were and wanted to go as its fixed constraint.)
In the modern marketplace, it's clear there's a market of people
paying a premium price for good keyboards, though in those days memory
and other vitals were so expensive I don't think anyone had free cash
to pay for such luxuries as keyboards unless they were just mixed into
the price in an inextricable way. So it probably wouldn't have worked
at the time.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Worse_is_better
Rainer Joswig wrote:
> >
> > What do you get out of using a lisp machine keyboard?
Now that Rainer has answered in great detail maybe he can provide
details to this question:
Where does one buy a Lisp Machine keyboard? (New one or second hand
keyboards if new ones aren't sold anymore).
--
Emre
In article
<····································@b1g2000hsg.googlegroups.com>,
Emre Sevinc <···········@gmail.com> wrote:
> Rainer Joswig wrote:
> > >
> > > What do you get out of using a lisp machine keyboard?
>
> Now that Rainer has answered in great detail maybe he can provide
> details to this question:
>
> Where does one buy a Lisp Machine keyboard? (New one or second hand
> keyboards if new ones aren't sold anymore).
>
> --
> Emre
Sometimes used Symbolics Lisp Machines are for sale.
For example there are two of those with a Symbolics
keyboard and one without for sale in the
US currently: a 3650, a fully loaded xl1200 and
a MacIvory II:
http://lispm.dyndns.org/news?ID=NEWS-2008-07-27-2
Usually for such stuff I would think it is best to contact
David Schmidt of Symbolics ( http://www.symbolics.com )
and see if he has some for sale. He often
had/has keyboards for sale and I think those were not
that expensive. He also had/has (don't know the latest status)
old machines loaded with software for sale.
If you are satisfied with the current keyboard, it may not be worth
the effort - but for the enthusiast this is a nice present...
--
http://lispm.dyndns.org/
Rainer Joswig <······@lisp.de> writes:
> > Where does one buy a Lisp Machine keyboard? (New one or second hand
> > keyboards if new ones aren't sold anymore).
>
> Sometimes used Symbolics Lisp Machines are for sale.
But if you're going to buy these systems just for the keyboard, please don't
just discard the other parts. I'm sure there's someone that wants them. :)
The MacIvory can be run with and without the Symbolics keyboard, by
the way. There's an overlay for the Mac keyboard of that time with
LispM keynames, and some prefer to run such macs with the native
keyboard, so you may be able to find someone with a MacIvory who doesn't
use their LispM keyboard...
And, by the way, my recollection is that, even ignoring the fact that
there were several LispM keyboards [1][2] before the gray keyboards Rainer
mentions, there were at least two versions of the gray keyboard, with
very different weight and feel, and maybe subtle differencs in keytop.
Does anyone recall the details of this? Might be that the XL series
had different keyboards than the embedded MacIvory, or some such thing.
I'm pretty sure some people think only one of these is the genuine one,
though there may be a difference about whether old or new is better for
some people.
[1] The Space Cadet keyboard used by the early Lispms
(CADRs) are obviously not under discussion here but are visible at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard
Click on he picture to see an enlargement, and then again on the word
"Full" to see it bigger still. Note that these early
keyboards did not have the triangle/circle/square keys but instead
had roman I,II,III,IV and thumbs up/down and hand left/right. My
recollection is that someone at Symbolics was alleged to have a Zmail
keyboard binding to be able to click thumbs-up to send a reply to
customer mail saying "Fixed in the next release." and perhaps a thumbs
down to say "Not a bug" or some such thing.
[2] the Symbolics 3600 and other early machines looked like
http://www.asl.dsl.pipex.com/symbolics/photos/IO/kbd-older.html
And there's a picture of the beveling:
http://www.johnbear.net/symbolics-keyboard-paper/gnu-emacs-kbd-for-mac3.html
In article <·············@nhplace.com>,
Kent M Pitman <······@nhplace.com> wrote:
> Rainer Joswig <······@lisp.de> writes:
>
> > > Where does one buy a Lisp Machine keyboard? (New one or second hand
> > > keyboards if new ones aren't sold anymore).
> >
> > Sometimes used Symbolics Lisp Machines are for sale.
>
> But if you're going to buy these systems just for the keyboard, please don't
> just discard the other parts. I'm sure there's someone that wants them. :)
>
> The MacIvory can be run with and without the Symbolics keyboard, by
> the way. There's an overlay for the Mac keyboard of that time with
> LispM keynames, and some prefer to run such macs with the native
> keyboard, so you may be able to find someone with a MacIvory who doesn't
> use their LispM keyboard...
Though I think the overlay is harder to get than the keyboard. ;-)
>
> And, by the way, my recollection is that, even ignoring the fact that
> there were several LispM keyboards [1][2] before the gray keyboards Rainer
> mentions, there were at least two versions of the gray keyboard, with
> very different weight and feel, and maybe subtle differencs in keytop.
I think you are right. There were also differences in caps lock with
LED or not. I also think the key mechanisms were a bit different,
but maybe I'm wrong on that.
> Does anyone recall the details of this? Might be that the XL series
> had different keyboards than the embedded MacIvory, or some such thing.
> I'm pretty sure some people think only one of these is the genuine one,
> though there may be a difference about whether old or new is better for
> some people.
>
> [1] The Space Cadet keyboard used by the early Lispms
> (CADRs) are obviously not under discussion here but are visible at
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Space-cadet_keyboard
> Click on he picture to see an enlargement, and then again on the word
> "Full" to see it bigger still. Note that these early
> keyboards did not have the triangle/circle/square keys but instead
> had roman I,II,III,IV and thumbs up/down and hand left/right. My
> recollection is that someone at Symbolics was alleged to have a Zmail
> keyboard binding to be able to click thumbs-up to send a reply to
> customer mail saying "Fixed in the next release." and perhaps a thumbs
> down to say "Not a bug" or some such thing.
LOL!
>
> [2] the Symbolics 3600 and other early machines looked like
> http://www.asl.dsl.pipex.com/symbolics/photos/IO/kbd-older.html
I have one of those two. They are higher, more bulky, require
more force to press the keys and are quite a bit louder. ->
really old school. They are as heavy as the the slim one, though.
> And there's a picture of the beveling:
> http://www.johnbear.net/symbolics-keyboard-paper/gnu-emacs-kbd-for-mac3.html
--
http://lispm.dyndns.org/
Thanks for the great explanation about the lisp keyboard.
> Here is one. Use it if you like.
> I'll see if I make a new picture the next days...
>
> http://lispm.dyndns.org/lisp/pics/102-0227_IMG.JPG
Thanks. I've used and linked here:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html
The photo url is here:
http://xahlee.org/emacs/i/lisp_machine_symbolics_keyboard.jpg
but direct access is turned off to prevent leechers.
was thinking using your symbolic keyboard as the main photo, but the
Space-cadet keyboard won over that. The name is more chantable and the
keyboard is more baroque. With all those thumbing keys and roman
numeral keys and greek alphabet and math symbols. LOL.
O, just for fun let's see if i can reproduce all those symbols on the
keyboard with unicode:
pointing fingers: ☞ ☜ ☝ ☟
Roman numerals: Ⅰ Ⅱ Ⅲ Ⅳ
Top symbols:
±
∧ ∨ ∩ ∪ ⊂ ⊃ ∀ ∞ ∃ ∂
⊥ ⊤ ⊢ ⊣ ↑ ↓ ← → ↔
Missing the symbol above Z and X. They must be in unicode but am too
lazy to find now.
≠ ≃ ≡ ≤ ≥
ok, too lazy to do the greek and symbols in the Front.
Btw, does your symbolic keyboard still do the Greeks? I don't see a
Greek modifier key as exists on the space cadet kbd. Oh, i see it's
labeled “Symbol” there. Though, not label is printed in front of the
keys. Perhaps it's too expensive to print those? But it would be a
draw back though.
Also, i noticed that it's missing the “Top” modifier as exists on the
Space-Cadet.
Btw, which key you map to Mac's Command and Option?
Also, i noticed that there's a colon labeled key “:” right to the left
of key 1. What does that do? (the keyboard already has the normal
colon and semicolor key to the left L key.)
------------------------
I'm a keyboard nerd.
Currently, the greatest keyboard i think are:
The Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard
http://xahlee.org/emacs/ms_keyboard/ms_natural_keyboard.html
A Review of The Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
http://xahlee.org/emacs/ms_keyboard/ms_natural_keyboard_4000.html
Kinesis's Contoured Keyboard
http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboards.html
(which i haven't actually used)
also someone mentioned in gnu.emacs.help about a url that sells
various keypads and strips that gives you extra function keys. That's
very handy i think. Cant find the url now.
------------------------
some comment about the lisp keyboard...
although i've never touched one... but here's some thoughts (mostly
negative. LOL. Close your eyes quick!)
• first of all, it's not ergonomic proper. i.e. split or curved. I'm
kinda used to split now. I'd scream after 20 seconds on non-split
ones.
• the lisp machine uses a bunch of modifiers and pre-defined special
keys. The model of pre-defined keys lost over software defined
function keys i think. As to the numerous modifiers, i do think it is
also inferior to just a pad of many functional keys, in termes of
operational efficiency and power in functionality.
Too many modifiers gets into a problem of chording and memorization
very quickly.
But of course, in a dedicated app such as inside lisp machines, i
think lisp machine keyboard rules, as it is designed for in the first
place.
my comment above is just considering it as a general purpose keyboard.
------------------------
for those interested in unicode symbols, see
http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t1/20040505_unicode.html
Btw, i've been searhing for symbols for Copy, Cut, Paste, and Undo.
The only one i found is for cut:
✂
U+2702, named “BLACK SCISSORS”.
I'm particularly trying to find a proper unicode symbol to represent
undo, as some type of curved arrow that points up left, but have spent
quite some time in the past and couldn't find any.
The closest are:
anticlockwise/clockwise open circle arrow:↺↻
U+21BA, U+21BB
anticlockwise/clockwise top semicircle arrow:↶↷
U+21B6, U+21B7
Xah
∑ http://xahlee.org/
☄
·······@gmail.com" <······@gmail.com> writes:
> Btw, does your symbolic keyboard still do the Greeks?
To the extent it ever did. I think there was a gradual evolution
(starting with the Knight TV keyboard at MIT and moving down to later
things in the LispM series). After a while, the "helpful" (if
visually busy) little characters above the main key name (originally
managed by the "Top" shift key, I think) and on the front of the keys
(the "Front" or "Greek" shift) in order to make the keys more familiar
and less daunting. The shift keys themselves kept changing names as
people struggled for good names. The constant shifting is why I'm not
100% sure of the names or the order. My recollection is that the
Symbol shift eventually subsumed both Top and Front/Greek, I believe,
with Symbol- doing Top and Shift-Symbol doing Greek, in part because
the Greek characters were not a full greek alphabet, they were just
the characters present in the LispM character set [1] which inherited from
the SAIL character set in the low range, and did not include shifted
characters anyway, so they were never really a full-range shift to
begin with... nor maybe even all the greek characters for that matter.
I'm not sure, though I think you can google this. I didn't go back
and research this thoroughly though, nor even did I power on my
Macivory to confirm that I got the Symbol vs Shift-Symbol parity
correct, so I could be wrong on some of these details. Consider this
a placeholder response unless someone purports to have more definitive
info.
[1] http://common-lisp.net/project/bknr/static/lmman/fd-str.xml
Search for "alpha" to find the table.
In article
<····································@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com>,
·······@gmail.com" <······@gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks for the great explanation about the lisp keyboard.
>
> > Here is one. Use it if you like.
> > I'll see if I make a new picture the next days...
> >
> > http://lispm.dyndns.org/lisp/pics/102-0227_IMG.JPG
>
> Thanks. I've used and linked here:
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/emacs_kb_shortcuts_pain.html
>
> The photo url is here:
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/i/lisp_machine_symbolics_keyboard.jpg
> but direct access is turned off to prevent leechers.
>
> was thinking using your symbolic keyboard as the main photo, but the
> Space-cadet keyboard won over that. The name is more chantable and the
> keyboard is more baroque. With all those thumbing keys and roman
> numeral keys and greek alphabet and math symbols. LOL.
Sure. Looks cool. Note that it's already labelled as a Symbolics keyboard.
The original ones were from the MIT.
> Btw, does your symbolic keyboard still do the Greeks? I don't see a
> Greek modifier key as exists on the space cadet kbd. Oh, i see it's
> labeled “Symbol” there. Though, not label is printed in front of the
> keys. Perhaps it's too expensive to print those? But it would be a
> draw back though.
The Symbol key accesses characters like these.
The mapping is displayed with SYMBOL-HELP.
> Also, i noticed that it's missing the “Top” modifier as exists on the
> Space-Cadet.
Correct.
> Btw, which key you map to Mac's Command and Option?
Currently LOCAL is Command and META is Option.
Symbolics uses the SUPER key as the Command key
on the MacIvory and META as Option.
>
> Also, i noticed that there's a colon labeled key “:” right to the left
> of key 1. What does that do? (the keyboard already has the normal
> colon and semicolor key to the left L key.)
It's the normal colon. Since the colon is used a lot in Lisp symbols, it
gets a more prominent key.
>
> ------------------------
> I'm a keyboard nerd.
>
> Currently, the greatest keyboard i think are:
>
> The Microsoft Natural Multimedia Keyboard
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/ms_keyboard/ms_natural_keyboard.html
>
> A Review of The Microsoft Natural Ergonomic Keyboard 4000
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/ms_keyboard/ms_natural_keyboard_4000.html
>
> Kinesis's Contoured Keyboard
> http://xahlee.org/emacs/keyboards.html
> (which i haven't actually used)
>
> also someone mentioned in gnu.emacs.help about a url that sells
> various keypads and strips that gives you extra function keys. That's
> very handy i think. Cant find the url now.
>
> ------------------------
>
> some comment about the lisp keyboard...
>
> although i've never touched one... but here's some thoughts (mostly
> negative. LOL. Close your eyes quick!)
>
> • first of all, it's not ergonomic proper. i.e. split or curved. I'm
> kinda used to split now. I'd scream after 20 seconds on non-split
> ones.
>
> • the lisp machine uses a bunch of modifiers and pre-defined special
> keys. The model of pre-defined keys lost over software defined
> function keys i think. As to the numerous modifiers, i do think it is
> also inferior to just a pad of many functional keys, in termes of
> operational efficiency and power in functionality.
>
> Too many modifiers gets into a problem of chording and memorization
> very quickly.
F1..F19 make no sense to me. I can more easily remember
that FUNCTION controls windows/processes and that
FUNCTION b buries the active window, FUNCTION REFRESH
redraws all windows, FUNCTION C complements the screen,
FUNCTION M toggles 'more processing', FUNCTION o
selects the next other exposed window, and so on. Same for
SELECT. SELECT d for the documentation tool, SELECT t
for the terminal and so on. F6, F7, F8, ... says nothing - I
can't remember what it does without constant training.
But I can remember that LOCAL d dims the screen and
LOCAL b makes it brighter. LOCAL q makes the console
quieter, LOCAL l makes it louder... and so on.
> But of course, in a dedicated app such as inside lisp machines, i
> think lisp machine keyboard rules, as it is designed for in the first
> place.
> my comment above is just considering it as a general purpose keyboard.
Well, since it controls a whole OS, it's not just an app.
But because of the design of the OS you get a lot
of mental reuse. For example there is only one
editor and it is Zmacs. Zmacs is reused in other apps
like Zmail (the mail client) or Concordia (the authoring tool).
There is also only one command interpreter (under
Unix tools parse commands mostly on their own). This command
interpreter is reused in all applications, so you get a very
consistent user interface when it comes to keyboard interaction
with the command interpreter.
>
> ------------------------
>
> for those interested in unicode symbols, see
> http://xahlee.org/Periodic_dosage_dir/t1/20040505_unicode.html
>
> Btw, i've been searhing for symbols for Copy, Cut, Paste, and Undo.
>
> The only one i found is for cut:
> ?
> U+2702, named “BLACK SCISSORS”.
>
> I'm particularly trying to find a proper unicode symbol to represent
> undo, as some type of curved arrow that points up left, but have spent
> quite some time in the past and couldn't find any.
>
> The closest are:
>
> anticlockwise/clockwise open circle arrow:??
> U+21BA, U+21BB
>
> anticlockwise/clockwise top semicircle arrow:↶↷
> U+21B6, U+21B7
>
> Xah
> ∑ http://xahlee.org/
>
> ?
--
http://lispm.dyndns.org/
In article <····························@news-europe.giganews.com>,
Rainer Joswig <······@lisp.de> wrote:
...
> Currently LOCAL is Command and META is Option.
> Symbolics uses the SUPER key as the Command key
> on the MacIvory and META as Option.
Replying to myself ... I should note that I now was
able to make the Symbolics keyboard relatively useable under
Mac OS X. For that purpose I'm using an application
called Keyboard Maestro. Now I can for example use the
SELECT key as a prefix key to switch to specific applications
(example: SELECT c selects iChat, on the Symbolics it would be Converse
the chat application under Genera). - just like in Genera.
COMPLETE now is c-m-i - the completion command in LispWorks.
The prefix keys are implemented with 'Macro Groups'
using Keyboard Maestro. SYMBOL now can be used to enter
special characters (so OPTION or Meta is not needed for that
and those can be exclusively used for commands).
http://lispm.dyndns.org/news?ID=NEWS-2008-07-27-1
--
http://lispm.dyndns.org/
On Jul 27, 6:25 pm, ·······@corporate-world.lisp.de" <······@corporate-
world.lisp.de> wrote:
> People might be interested that thanks to Hans Huebner it is now
> possible to use the Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with a modern
> USB-equipped computer. Hans has put together an adapter. I bought
> one of those adapters for 30 Euros recently. Currently typing with
> the Symbolics keyboard attached to my MacBook Pro.
I think you need to credit Alexander Kurz and his keyboardbabel
project, as Huebner himself does:
<http://netzhansa.blogspot.com/2008/05/symbolics-keyboard-on-ps2-
port.html>
Best, Charles Turner
On Jul 28, 12:25 am, ·······@corporate-world.lisp.de"
<······@corporate-world.lisp.de> wrote:
> People might be interested that thanks to Hans Huebner it is now
> possible to use the Symbolics Lisp Machine keyboard with a modern
> USB-equipped computer. Hans has put together an adapter. I bought
> one of those adapters for 30 Euros recently.
Please note that the Symbolics keyboard adapter is part of the
kbdbabel Project by Alexander Kurz, and Alexander has written the
firmware. See http://kbdbabel.org/ for source code, schematics and
PCB layouts, all under the GPL license. If you intend to build an
adapter yourself, you may be interested in http://bknr.net/svn/trunk/projects/symbolics-keyboard/,
you will find some tools to generate layout definitions for the
kbdbabel firmware there.
I have a few adapters left, so if you don't want to build one
yourself, I may be able to help you out.
-Hans