double bucky

Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The command to burn all

LEDs is double bucky F."

This term originated on the Stanford extended-ASCII keyboard,

and was later taken up by users of the space-cadet keyboard

at MIT. A typical MIT comment was that the Stanford buckybits (control and meta shifting keys) were nice, but there

weren't enough of them; you could type only 512 different

characters on a Stanford keyboard. An obvious way to address

this was simply to add more shifting keys, and this was

eventually done; but a keyboard with that many shifting keys

is hard on touch-typists, who don't like to move their hands

away from the home position on the keyboard. It was

half-seriously suggested that the extra shifting keys be

implemented as pedals; typing on such a keyboard would be very

much like playing a full pipe organ. This idea is mentioned

in a parody of a very fine song by Jeffrey Moss called "Rubber

Duckie", which was published in "The Sesame Street Songbook"

(Simon and Schuster 1971, ISBN 0-671-21036-X). These lyrics

were written on May 27, 1978, in celebration of the Stanford

keyboard:

Double Bucky

Double bucky, you're the one!

You make my keyboard lots of fun.

Double bucky, an additional bit or two:

(Vo-vo-de-o!)

Control and meta, side by side,

Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!

Double bucky! Half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!

Oh,

I sure wish that I

Had a couple of

Bits more!

Perhaps a

Set of pedals to

Make the number of

Bits four:

Double double bucky!

Double bucky, left and right

OR'd together, outta sight!

Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of

Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of

Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!

- The Great Quux

(With apologies to Jeffrey Moss. This, by the way, is an

excellent example of computer filk --- ESR).

See also meta bit, cokebottle, and quadruple bucky.

[Jargon File]

(1994-12-07)