What happened to "Repeat" keys?

[megarat]

Please excuse a moment of irrational nostalgia ...

Ah, I really miss the "Repeat" keys that were found on terminal and computer keyboards from 20+ years ago.  Back when I was an undergrad, I just annihilated people in Mazewars on the VAX simply because I learned how to use the repeat key as a secret weapon, and they didn't stand a chance.

So screw all these discussions about Esc., CapsLock, numeric keypads vs. scroll blocks, and those bizarro Scroll Lock and whatever other vestigial keys might be commonplace today simply out of legacy ... what happened to the Repeat key?

While I'm having fun with nostalgia, I'm actually seriously curious about this.  It's clear that reserving a key just for repeating keystrokes took up valuable real estate on the keyboard.  But back in the day of the Apple II, I'm assuming that it was easier to solve the key-repeat problem with hard electronics than it was with the operating system or application.

Does anyone know if this is the case, and if so, the specifics?

[Hak Foo]

It's possible also that it was a "do we want every key to repeat by default?"

I recall we used to have an electric typewriter, dash and X and space repeated, not everything

[microsoft windows]

I want to know what happened to that Turbo key...

[lowpoly]

Ah, I really miss the "Repeat" keys that were found on terminal and computer keyboards from 20+ years ago.

Like this one?

I want to know what happened to that Turbo key...

My Ortek 142 has "Fast Repeat" in the middle of the cursor cluster but it won't do anything.

[Rajagra]

Ah, my first computer (Superboard 2) had a Repeat key. And a proper mechanically toggling Shift Lock. A Control key in the right place, and a nearby Escape key. Line Feed as well as Return. "Rub Out"  - sounds so much better than Backspace.

And who needs a case on the computer? An exposed PCB (and PSU, and mains wires) aren't such a bad thing.

[quadibloc]

My Selectric Typewriter has this (repeat backspace).

That's not repeat backspace. When you press that key, the typewriter backspaces, and it switches over to use the correction ribbon. So if you type a wrong letter, press that key, you can type the same letter again, and cover up the wrong letter with white-out.

"Rub Out"  - sounds so much better than Backspace.

Huh? Backspace is control-H, ASCII code X'08'; Rub Out is DEL, with ASCII code X'7F'. It "rubs out" a wrong character on paper tape, because it punches all the holes.

IBM Selectric typewriters had "Typamatic" keys that would repeat if held down hard, and so their terminals, and then their personal computer, followed that philosophy. The "repeat" key was a feature of the original paradigmatic ASCII terminal - the venerable ASR 33 Teletype. It was between the Rub Out key and the Break key (which was sometimes, but not always, red).

[o2dazone]

IBM Selectric typewriters had "Typamatic" keys

When I had my 286-386 and 486, that was the same term they used for when you held down a key and it repeated. Now I'm not sure if it even has a name...but I still call it Typamatic (despite Microsoft calling it 'character repeat' or something like that)

[Shawn Stanford]

Am I the only one who remembers 'copy up'? It was a key that, when pressed, would copy the character from the line above the line you were on, then advance the cursor.

[quadibloc]

Am I the only one who remembers 'copy up'? It was a key that, when pressed, would copy the character from the line above the line you were on, then advance the cursor.

I admit that I do not remember a key like that on any computer or terminal I ever used.

However, I did use the Model 29 keypunch, which had a key marked DUP, which had a function analogous to that - copy a character from the card in the reading station to the card currently at the punch station. Could you be remembering this from a data entry system?

[Rajagra]

Am I the only one who remembers 'copy up'? It was a key that, when pressed, would copy the character from the line above the line you were on, then advance the cursor.

I've used that, but I can't remember on what system, or if it was actually labelled copy up.

[Shawn Stanford]

I've used both a cardpunch and terminals. Now that you mention it, I remember the 'DUP' key as well...

[quadibloc]

But back in the day of the Apple II, I'm assuming that it was easier to solve the key-repeat problem with hard electronics than it was with the operating system or application.

Does anyone know if this is the case, and if so, the specifics?

I realize now that while the answer to your question was part of my earlier post, this wasn't clear.

Basically, the key repeat problem was solved with a separate key on the Model 33 Teletype, which had a mechanical keyboard. Since this was what people were used to, straight ASCII video terminals, which were designed to be connected to any minicomputer that used ASCII, followed this practice.

Meanwhile, IBM made electric typewriters. On those, it made sense for a few characters, such as the underscore and the period, to automatically repeat. This was done when the key was pressed down somewhat further than done for normal typing.

So, when IBM made its 3270 terminal system, while it didn't use special double-action switches, having keys repeat when held down long enough followed what people were familiar with from IBM typewriters - and the IBM 2741 terminal, which was based on a Selectric typewriter.

The 3270 transmitted characters to the host computer, not key up and key down codes - in fact, it even lightened the burden on the mainframe by usually operating in block mode. That's why the "enter" key was down where the right-hand Control key is on a Model M; it was meant to send a screenful of data, not to be used for every line, so a more awkward position for less frequent use seemed reasonable.

The original PC keyboard was derived from the one on the IBM 5251 display station, so, although the IBM PC used ASCII for its character set, the keyboard was the product of a line of evolution of keyboards on EBCDIC terminals, and those in its line of descent did not have repeat keys at any point.

[Shawn Stanford]

The 3270 transmitted characters to the host computer, not key up and key down codes - in fact, it even lightened the burden on the mainframe by usually operating in block mode. That's why the "enter" key was down where the right-hand Control key is on a Model M; it was meant to send a screenful of data, not to be used for every line, so a more awkward position for less frequent use seemed reasonable.

Yep. Hence the 'Enter' key, which sent a transaction to the mainframe and the 'Return' key, which simply sent the cursor to the start of the subsequent line, in essence, executing a 'Down Arrow & Home'.

One of the coolest things about the DisplayWriter was the way it would move entire words to take margins into account. For someone who was raised on typewriters and worked with dumb terminals, that was a revelation!