weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU (Joe Weening) (12/20/89)
In article <37371@apple.Apple.COM> baum@Apple.COM (Allen J. Baum) writes: >In article <2253@dataio.Data-IO.COM> aez@dataio.Data-IO.COM () writes: >The Symbolics had a three-button mouse and software scannable control >keys on the keyboard (control, meta, hyper, super, [shift counted as >a double click]). The mouse, keyboard usage was suggested by >Buckminster Fuller and Richard Zipple (project leader) called them >"Bucky Keys". The terminology of "bucky-bits" precedes Symbolics by quite a bit. It originated at Stanford AI Labs in the late 60's, I believe. I can't recall how they got named exactly. Perhaps someone who remembers could set it straight, and possibly cross-post to alt.computer.folklore As I've heard it, "Bucky" was a nickname for Nicklaus Wirth (of Pascal fame); don't ask me why. I checked this with Les Earnest, who was the administrator of the Stanford AI Lab, and he confirms this. (The "I" in the following message is Les; "JMC" is John McCarthy, director of the lab. "III" (pronounced "triple eye") is an old display system.) From: Les Earnest <LES@SAIL.Stanford.EDU> Subject: re: bucky bits Yes, the bucky bits were named for Nicklaus Wirth, who had suggested the extra control key. The two control keys, originally called Control-1 and Control-2, were incorporated in the design of the Philco display terminals connected to the PDP-1/Thor timesharing system in Pine Hall. This happened shortly before I arrived and I don't know who hung the name "Bucky" on them -- JMC may remember. The same keyboard design was carried forward into the keyboards of the III displays when they were purchased around 1968. Interestingly enough, those keyboards used optical encoding -- they used conventional typewriter keyboards with optical masks hung below each key. When a key was depressed, its mask blocked some of the light aimed at 6 photodiodes, which generated the basic code for that key. The Shift, Control-1, and Control-2 keys activated more photodiodes, yielding 9 bits. You can imagine some of the failure modes, especially with n-key rollover. When I redesigned the keyboard for the Data Disk system in 1971 and chose Microswitch to build them, I renamed the two control keys as Control and Meta and added the Top key. We then replaced the troublesome III keyboards with this new design, which was later copied by MIT, CMU and, to some extent, Symbolics. -- Joe Weening Computer Science Dept. weening@Gang-of-Four.Stanford.EDU Stanford University
harley@gofer.enet.dec.com (John H. Privitera) (12/20/89)
Extracted from jargon.txt... BUCKY BITS (primarily Stanford) n. The bits produced by the CTRL and META shift keys on a Stanford (or Knight) keyboard. DOUBLE BUCKY: adj. Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The command to burn all LEDs is double bucky F." /---------------------------------------------------------------------\ | John Privitera | "As leader of all illegal activities | | Digital Equipment Corp | in Casablanca, I'm an influential and | | 333 South St. | respected man." | | Shrewsbury, Mass. | Sidney Greenstreet | +---------------------------------------------------------------------+ | E-Net: gofer::harley | | UUCP: ...!decwrl!gofer.enet.dec.com!harley | | INET: harley@gofer.enet.dec.com | | Phone: (508) 841-2087 | | All opinions expressed or implied are mine, and you know what they | | say about opinions... | \---------------------------------------------------------------------/