IBM gave us the MOUSE
-----Original Message----- From: IBM Mainframe Discussion List [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jay Maynard Sent: Monday, April 28, 2025 7:13 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: What has IBM ever done for us? (probably more than I know) IBM wasn't consistent with PgUp/PgDn, either. The 122-key PC/3270 keyboard has the magic 6 (which are above not an inverted T, but a cross, with Home in the center) as PA1, PA2/PgUp, and Jump/PgDn (with PA3 on the Alt) across the top, then backtab/End, Insert, and Delete. On Mon, Apr 28, 2025 at 12:40 AM Timothy Sipples <[email protected]> wrote: > Steve Thompson wrote: > >I'm not sure the mag stripe on a credit card was by IBM. As I > >understood it, TeleCredit of Tampa owned that patent as it had > >been invented by one of their people. > > I wrote "Magnetic stripes on payment and other cards (such as ID cards)," > i.e. the card itself. Upon further research it still looks historically > accurate. Here's IBM's point of view: > > https://www.ibm.com/history/magnetic-stripe > > As I understand it, Ron Klein claims he was first to file a *related* > patent (in 1966, granted in 1969). His patent is for automating credit card > validations. He does not claim he invented the magnetic strip/stripe card > itself. At least not in this article where he offers his point of view: > > > https://www.nasdaq.com/articles/point-sale-pioneer-ron-klein-looks-back-2013-08-13 > > The work the late IBM engineer Forrest Parry and his wife, Dorothea, did > (originally for the CIA) dates to 1960 -- prior art about 6 years before > Klein filed his patent. Also, IBM did NOT patent its magnetic stripe card > technology. (Maybe IBM didn't have a choice?) Which makes IBM's > contribution that much more relevant to the "for us?" part of the subject > line. > > Jay Maynard wrote: > >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. > > Sure, but DEC's CTRL isn't to the left of the A key on the LK201. DEC put > the CAPS LOCK key to the immediate left of the A key, then the CTRL key to > the left of CAPS LOCK. That was a supremely bad arrangement. If you want to > remap CAPS LOCK to CTRL, of course you can. Just like a fair number of > people remap right CTRL to 3270 ENTER. But I think IBM was quite wise in > keeping CTRL and CAPS LOCK well separated. > > While I'm complaining, DEC had the excellent insight to create the > "inverted T" layout for the 4 cursor navigation keys but then placed "Next > Screen" and "Prev Screen" keys *horizontally* and *adjacent* to one > another. Ugh. Maybe they had flipping through the pages of a book in mind? > But at least with the benefit of hindsight I don't think that was the best > decision. It's inconsistent with the behavior of the inverted T keys, and > it doesn't even make sense in terms of the left arrow/right arrow key > positions which should be orthogonal. The arrangement of the other keys > (and the keys themselves) in their chosen "magic 6" is also hard to > understand. Frankly, the LK201's "magic 6" is a complete mess. I think IBM > got this part right too: Page Up and Page Down arranged vertically. Same > with Home and End. IBM's 6 key layout just makes a lot more sense in my > view. > > >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. > > Yes, absolutely there were variations. The 122 key layout was reasonably > popular for hardcore data entry and in customer call centers, as examples. > But I'm really focusing on the much more popular 101/102 key PC layout that > IBM helped spread far and wide because that's the layout that still > reverberates, in many good ways. The \ and | keys are important for command > line work in various operating systems, so on the PC keyboard layout IBM > kicked that key above the ENTER key and enlarged it slightly. Good > decision, I think. > > >And yeah, the LK201's touch, not to put too fine a point on it, sucks > >rocks. > > Yeah, and the (configurable) speaker clicks to simulate the sound of > mechanical keystrokes somehow made the whole experience even worse. :-( > However, the smooth scrolling feature was mildly entertaining for about 10 > minutes. :-) > > ————— > 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 ---------------------------------------------------------------------- For IBM-MAIN subscribe / signoff / archive access instructions, send email to [email protected] with the message: INFO IBM-MAIN
