I'll quibble with some of this: 1) There aer still a lot of folks who swap left-control and caps lock, and will swear till their dying day that control must always be to the left of A and refuse to consider any other option. They will argue that down low where it is on basically every modern keyboard is and always will be wrong. 4) I'm typing this on a 122-key IBM keyboard with a vertical enter key, and ;'\ are right next to each other to the left of L there, too.
And, FWIW, I think the Command key is a valuable improvement that the PC should have adopted. The problem is that Control has meaning to things like terminal windows; having a separate Command key removes that ambiguity. The Fn key is only on laptops, and is there only to shift a few keys to replace functions that simply aren't present on the laptop keyboard. (For example, on at least the Macbook Pro I have for work, Home is Fn-left arrow.) And yeah, the LK201's touch, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks rocks. (I have an LK401, and it's no better.) But I'm not a fan of the Model M, either, despite daily-driving one. I find the touch too heavy, and it makes me work too hard. I much prefer the keyboard on my 3279. On Sun, Apr 27, 2025 at 8:43 PM Timothy Sipples <[email protected]> wrote: > Jay Maynard wrote: > >I'll quibble slightly about the keyboard layout: the DEC LK201 (for > >the VT220) beat the 104-key PC keyboard to market. > > DEC's LK201 popularized inverted T cursor navigation keys -- and that > was/is very good. DEC also landed on 6 keys above the inverted T (in a 2x3 > arrangement), and that was a pretty good decision too. I'd award 1.5 > "keyboard history points" to DEC for these decisions. > > However, in my view the LK201 missed the mark in many significant respects > compared to the 1980s-90s standard IBM 101/102 key PC keyboard layout, a > layout that still heavily influences today's keyboards. Here are some > examples: > > 1. Weirdly the LK201 had awful positioning for the CTRL key, next to CAPS > LOCK. (Nobody at DEC used vi or WordStar?) Hopefully we can all agree by > now that CTRL and CAPS LOCK have no business being next to each other. The > IBM 101/102 key PC keyboard layout put the CTRL keys (2 of them) where they > should be. (Of course if you want the right CTRL key to act as 3270 ENTER, > no problem.) > > 2. IBM put the ESC key in a "grade separated" position in the upper left. > Thank goodness! > > 3. DEC put the "inverted T" directly below some other navigation keys with > no gap. That just wasn't right. IBM left a gap between the "inverted T" > keys and the other navigation keys (Insert, Home, PgUp, etc.), a much > better decision. > > 4. The LK201 lumped the ; ' \ keys (and their shifted counterparts) > together, to the right of the L key. That was not good. One key between the > home row and ENTER is great, but two is too many. IBM moved the \ key to a > better position, above the ENTER key. > > 5. I think IBM's function key layout makes much more sense. IBM used 12 > function keys (in standard PC layout; there was a 24 function key variant) > in groups of 4 and (importantly) right aligned them with the main section > of the keyboard. As far as I can tell DEC randomly filled their top row: no > grouping consistency, and no alignment with the main keyboard section. I > think it's easier for touch typists to find IBM's function keys. > > I agree that the world really didn't/doesn't need Windows or (lately) > Copilot keys. > > The Apple Mac keyboard has 4 (!) modifier keys to the left of the space > bar: Fn, Ctrl, Option, and Command. That's more than enough already. > (Command-Shift-Option-... what's that key sequence?) And that's supposedly > the *simpler* desktop platform. The IBM 101/102 key PC keyboard layout > settled on 3 modifier keys: Shift, Ctrl, and Alt. (Or "3 1/2" with Alt Gr.) > All 3 modifier keys were duplicated left and right (at least in the 101 key > variant; Alt/Alt Gr was a bit different). I really wish the industry stuck > with 3 (or 3 1/2) modifier keys. But now Windows laptops/desktops are up > to...5? 6? Yuck. > > I'm ignoring the LK201's touch feel...which wasn't good. :-( > > ————— > Timothy Sipples > Senior Architect > Digital Assets, Industry Solutions, and Cybersecurity > IBM Z/LinuxONE, Asia-Pacific > [email protected] > > > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, > send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN > -- Jay Maynard ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
