vi and emacs keyboards

[colomb]

These two images came across my twitter feed. The first is the keyboard used by the designers of emacs, while the second is the board used by the designer of vi.

[tufty]

Vi was designed?  I thought it was a page fault gone sentient.

[Vibex]

looks about right

Vi was designed?  I thought it was a page fault gone sentient.

 )

[Altis]

Vi was designed?  I thought it was a page fault gone sentient.

You'd think if it was designed, they'd have gotten the arrow keys right.

Left and Right make sense, but Up and Down should be switched. That way, the left-two keys go backwards (left/up) and the right-two go forwards (down/right).

It seems they picked them arbitrarily without too much thought. Just my $0.02 though.

[Vibex]

Vi was designed?  I thought it was a page fault gone sentient.

You'd think if it was designed, they'd have gotten the arrow keys right.

Left and Right make sense, but Up and Down should be switched. That way, the left-two keys go backwards (left/up) and the right-two go forwards (down/right).

It seems they picked them arbitrarily without too much thought. Just my $0.02 though.

Haha, wow. I thought I was the only one who felt this way. Glad to see someone else is likeminded.

[Smasher816]

The real question is why did the original keyboard designers choose to put the arrows in that way. Afaik vi used hjkl simply because those keys already had labels for the arrows.

[mdszy]

Vi was designed?  I thought it was a page fault gone sentient.

You'd think if it was designed, they'd have gotten the arrow keys right.

Left and Right make sense, but Up and Down should be switched. That way, the left-two keys go backwards (left/up) and the right-two go forwards (down/right).

It seems they picked them arbitrarily without too much thought. Just my $0.02 though.

The J makes some sense because it looks like a down arrow, somewhat. If you squint and look at it from real far away, that is.

[KRKS]

The real question is why did the original keyboard designers choose to put the arrows in that way. Afaik vi used hjkl simply because those keys already had labels for the arrows.

Too much DDR I guess 

[kennardsmith]

Vim user here. I find the weird arrow key arrangement works well for how I use vim.

I hardly ever use "h" and "l" to move around if ever, I'm usually jumping around a line by finding a character rather than holding down or hammering a letter to move my cursor toward a position. When I use "j" and "k" it's either to adjust my position after I jumped too far and more often to perform an action like deleting lines. I tend to use "j" way more than I use "k" in these instances.

I'm not sure if my brain adjusted to use "down" more often because "j" is under index finger or if "down" being under the index finger was a design choice by a keyboard manufacturer.

I hear to be a vim expert, you don't ever use hjkl at all

I got to get me some of those vi caps!

[rowdy]

Ha!  vi users can still navigate their files even on keyboards without any arrow keys

[Giorgio]

I find hjkl perfectly rational. In particular the down arrow - surely the most used - is where you rest the index finger, an easy to find key, because that's where the dash is.

[Altis]

I find hjkl perfectly rational. In particular the down arrow - surely the most used - is where you rest the index finger, an easy to find key, because that's where the dash is.

But with that logic... the middle finger is also dominant, and 'K' is easy to find by being the key right next to the one with the dash.

I still think that the logical grouping is to have the backwards-keys on the left and the forwards-keys both on the right, especially since I often use them together (moving down and across simultaneously).

Just my thoughts, though, and I realize that it isn't about to change now that it's been established.

[t888]

These two images came across my twitter feed. The first is the keyboard used by the designers of emacs, while the second is the board used by the designer of vi.
(Attachment Link)
(Attachment Link)

Crazy to think that the Symbolics keyboard above could produce over 8000 different characters...

[Giorgio]

I woudn't say that the middle finger is also dominant. Sometimes, when browsing the web with firefox and the vimfx plugin, my hand rests on the keyboard, fully opened, and only the index finger is on the j keycap; plus, when you search for the correct position - maybe that you are not seated pefectly in front of the keyboard - you put the index finger on the j, and only after that you put the other fingers in the home position.

I find hjkl perfectly rational. In particular the down arrow - surely the most used - is where you rest the index finger, an easy to find key, because that's where the dash is.

But with that logic... the middle finger is also dominant, and 'K' is easy to find by being the key right next to the one with the dash.

I still think that the logical grouping is to have the backwards-keys on the left and the forwards-keys both on the right, especially since I often use them together (moving down and across simultaneously).

Just my thoughts, though, and I realize that it isn't about to change now that it's been established.

[againer]

I find hjkl perfectly rational. In particular the down arrow - surely the most used - is where you rest the index finger, an easy to find key, because that's where the dash is.

Thats why 60% keyboards and vim fits so well together.
Oh and the ESC button is not as far away as on a tkl.