Re: "Python for Lisp Programmers"

["Seth Gordon" <address@hidden>]

   From: "S. Alexander Jacobson" <alex@shop.com>

   Historical question: Ergonomically, Parentheses are annoying because they
   require constant use of the SHIFT key.

The rise of the PC has made the IBM Selectric keyboard layout standard
for computers in the US, but it was not always so.

The keyboards on the TRS-80, the Apple ][ series and the Commodore
VIC-20, didn't have any square brackets on the keyboard at all; just
() and <>.  The old Teletype machines had square brackets, but they
were also shifted characters.

Some LISP machines, unsurprisingly, had their keyboards laid out so
that the parentheses were unshifted....

http://www.pfu.fujitsu.com/hhkeyboard/kb_collection/symbolics.gif

-- 
"I see more exclamation points in modern Scheme code than I do in
Anthony Robbins quotes." --Paul Snively
== Seth Gordon == sethg@ropine.com == http://ropine.com/ == std. disclaimer ==