deskthority

Polecat wrote: ↑

Yesterday, 06:02

One more, also from 1999, showing the black Focus FK-2002 that I recently rebuilt. It was already showing some shine on the spacebar, so I guess I used it quite a bit early on.

What is the legend on that extra key between LSHIFT and Z?

Muirium wrote: ↑

20 Aug 2019, 17:50

Cool! Similar to our setup of the time. I liked GEM better than DOS, too.

Who didn't?

I got to use GEM on an Atari ST machine. It was stellar!

I participated in many ways in keyboard designs. In an official report to the French Government published in 1983, I recommended to standardize keyboard layouts and study the adoption of a universal keyboard based on Dvorak or Marsan layout. The major purpose of this reform was to diminish users' s...

For sure there are more black square badge ISO model Ms around. ABBFD40A-4C17-4593-82FC-73EA234D4C87.jpeg I recently got this one, Spanish ISO, and firstly …… ¡Envidia a a a a a a a a a aaaaa! The strange thing about this one is that the previous owner assured me that the keyboard was originally pa...

Muirium wrote: ↑

18 Aug 2019, 10:16

Can’t we just all agree on short shorts?

'course not. They're uncomfortable to wear if less than a certain length — especially those made out of thicker fabrics, like denim or corduroy.

Don't you worry. I've spared a couple cents here and put them on a low-interest account in your name. When year 9999 comes, it'll have about $350, which will be applied for the extended warranty (plus one more year of coverage, for just 49.99!).

Now SUFFER.

Ok, now DREAD the upcoming SUFFERING.

but now we need four digits zeroes for it to be meaningful: 1999/ 0 4 / 0 1. Fixed that for you. Well, we COULD adopt hexadecimal numbers for the date and then months would be represented with exactly one digit (with space to spare, reserved for months like Checkuary and Nonexistember) and day numb...

Format YYYYMMDD or YYYY-MM-DD (including zeroes!) is a format that is most computer-friendly. If you use it in lists or filenames, dates as characters and/or numbers are always recognized in the proper order. Yes. YYYY-MM-DD is (or was) the official Canadian date format, but years of computers defa...

snacksthecat wrote: ↑

18 Aug 2019, 03:08

My unpopular opinions thread was better

Says you.

Chyros wrote: ↑

18 Aug 2019, 00:57

I don't get it – what are these bots trying to achieve with this? Oo

Probably wreak havoc in automated spam filters — to avoid mistakenly marking real accounts, posts like this would be given a pass and their accounts, now "legitimate", would then have a better option of posting actual spam.

Using / in date formats is confusing because there are several ways of ordering the numbers. In the previous decade you could have dates like 05/07/04 ... and HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO READ THAT?! With derision, of course. That was supposed to be 05/07/ 20 04. ISO makes the ordering unambiguous. So M/D/...

samuelcable wrote: ↑

17 Aug 2019, 20:22

M/D/Y is the best date format, and I say that as someone who usually hates the "American" way of doing things (farhenheit, imperial)

"Unpopular" and "flat out wrong" sometimes do coincide, indeed.

On my ATARI 800XL, the top right 1U key was BREAK; the one to its left was BACKSPACE; the 1.5U R2 RETURN key was below — definitely not a good design (OTOH, I bet some people today would dig the R3 1.25U CAPS key and perhaps wonder if it could be moved to the R4 1.0U position below) . Now, Backspace...

And as we are in the "Unpopular opinions thread": Still wondering... After all, you all learnt typing on keyboards with a fully illogic and arbitrary arrangement of the alpha keys, but you can't get used to a 1u Backspace? Because I am a clumsy git who still mistypes from time to time due to imprec...

Indeed. I like it 50% bigger, and perfectly symmetrical with Tab. As seen on my HHKB with the KBDfans icon mods set: 2U Backspace is best because real men and real women are not afraid of doubling down on correcting a mistake they have made. :mrgreen: Jokes aside, If Enter weren't located there... ...

You know something is undeniably true when kbdfr and I agree on it.

Muirium wrote: ↑

16 Aug 2019, 18:50

It’s called Backspace!

And it's best represented by the ⌫ symbol.

Like BAE. In and of itself, that enormous key isn't THAT BAD in and of itself — it's the 1U Backspace the true evil (and the various fixes to avoid that are also pretty bad, too). Exactly! Just like communism is a great idea, if only individual human beings didn't have free will, group loyalties, p...

Fascism is a much bigger package than just large scale government owned, privately implemented infrastructure programs. I’m all in favour of those too, while being left wing myself. Take a look at the story of the New Deal in the USA of the 1930s. That’s how to build your way up out of an almighty ...

andrewjoy wrote: ↑

16 Aug 2019, 10:37

depletedvespene wrote: ↑

15 Aug 2019, 22:14

andrewjoy wrote: ↑

15 Aug 2019, 16:45

Where are the empty beer cans discarded crisp packets and mouldy mugs of tea ?

Or is that just me ?

Let me teach you about the joys of something called a "trash can".

Yeh but thats full!

Let me teach you about the joys of something called a "large trash can".

Muirium wrote: ↑

16 Aug 2019, 00:05

Meanwhile, the HHKB has `~ and Esc as entirely separate keys. When throwing shade, aim right!

And that's about the only thing that HHKB got right (even if the placement of the BACKQUOTE key is less than stellar).

I'll need to decide which would be the most irritating between using fn to get at the ` key or at the escape key, as I also use the latter a great deal in both editing (I'm a vi type) and video games. Of course I could just add a new XCompose sequence to accept esc as a valid modifier... In a nutsh...

andrewjoy wrote: ↑

15 Aug 2019, 16:45

Where are the empty beer cans discarded crisp packets and mouldy mugs of tea ?

Or is that just me ?

Let me teach you about the joys of something called a "trash can".

If you want to assimilate left leaning with marxism, you should also assimilate right leaning with fascism. ... or with left leaning, either. Then again, caricaturization and demonization of the opponents is still a thing, and in a civilized world, this kind of crap should be disterred from politic...

You mean this? https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/aug/12/argentinian-peso-plunges-as-centre-left-win-election-primary Don’t worry. The “centre left” are the good guys, when they’re not stuck in a food fight with themselves over who’s most woke. They even occasionally build stuff! Ah, those were...

I guess this is not an unpopular opinion outside of my country, but marxism sucks. Thanks again, light blue and white banana republic. For that matter, from what I've heard from Argentinians, today's disastrous economy is the fault of Macri and only Macri, and to actually know better IS the unpopul...

kbdfr wrote: ↑

15 Aug 2019, 15:45

…
Now that's rather what I would like to see: real life desktops, not showroom arrangements

All right, then. I've posted this desktop before, but this time I won't clean up anything before the picture.

I've learned a lot today. Apart from depletedvespene making good points ;) , that Apple uses its smartphone keyboard UI apparently also for its "serious" OS!? @vometia: What do you have to press to get an "à" as mentioned in your example? If this "à" actually means "á", it may be referring to the f...

Just quickly (I'm knackered and off to bed even though it's not yet 7pm: up since 4am and a "challenging" day) the ¬ thing is/was popular with IBMesque programming languages; PL/I maybe? I forget offhand as I'm just a C pleb and even that and its antecedents like BCPL and related have gone through ...

As for typing à: what does Windows and the like do when you hold down the a key? Is it really still just aaaaaaa? Hopefully they’ve just copied Apple by now and you get a wee menu with every diacritic your heart desires. Well, of course it's still just "aaaaaaa". Do you actually expect to press and...