On 2016-09-01, Jim Wilkins wrote:
wrote in message
...
On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 20:07:08 -0400, wrote:
On Tue, 30 Aug 2016 13:50:31 -0700, Larry Jaques
wrote:
[ ... ]
If you're a touch typist, simply dot the F and J keys with a mound
of
epoxy or fingernail polish, or superglue a rounded piece of broken
key
to the tops. If you're not a touch typist, shame on you. You
should
have learned that by now. When computers came out, I sure was glad
I
took typing in 9th grade.
Nott a touch typist, sad to say. I twisted rnches in hgh school
insead of tappng keys. Serverd me very well for 26 years.
When I retired and bought my first computer ('94), I got a typing
course on CD and worked on it religiously for a couple years. Since
then I have reverted to the biblical method - "seek, and ye shall
find".
I learned at home -- *long* before home computers. My aunt had
a set of rubber caps to go over the keys, and a wall chart, and got me
to type using the chart instead of the keycaps. I've been glad that I
learned it ever since. (Of course, my handwriting is so terrible that I
*need* to type. :-)
[ ... ]
I got into computers in the Teletype era, the early 70's. They don't
delete mistakes and I decided I'd rather be slower entering the text
and less embarrassed showing it to someone.
Slower -- no lower case, took a *lot* of force on the keycaps,
noisy, and the smell of hot oil. (ASR-33, FWIW)
*And* -- the ability to set the ASR-33 up to send an
identification string when asked by the computer or another terminal on
the line. But once you set it -- you were stuck with it until you got
some repair parts. There was a plastic drum with a bunch of flags,
which you broke off to set the characters to be sent. No way to replace
the flags -- just the whole drum. You could *change* existing
characters to *some* others -- by adding bits (breaking off remaining
flags).
http://answers.google.com/answers/th...id/386870.html
The VT100 terminal was a marvelous advance. It accepted codes in
instant messages that permitted messing up the recipient's screen in
many creative ways, like making random letters break loose and slide
down to pile up at the bottom of the screen, or a little Pac-Man-like
sprite that would nibble a twisty path through your displayed program.
They only disrupted screen memory, not the source.
Hmmm ... I've used VT100s (and later DEC terminals -- I still
have a VT-240 used for some things upstairs), but I didn't know about
those codes. I could imagine a *program* doing that to the screen,
however, as there was a lot of cursor-addressing stuff built in there,
and the ability to replace characters at need. (Hmm ... also setting up
an area of the screen to be sent while the rest stays put.)
Enjoy,
DoN.
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