Re: Decimals

In article <fxbbdhxh.fsf@xxxxxxxxxx>,
Evan Kirshenbaum <kirshenbaum@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Actually, I believe, 128. (TeX was written on DEC-20's, which used
7-bit characters[1].)

Actually, TeX-78 was written on the WAITS[1] operating system, which
normally used six-, seven-, eight-, nine-, and twelve-bit characters,
as the need arose. I believe nine-bit characters were conventional,
at least for input, at SAIL (hence "control-meta-cokebottle" on the
Stanford keyboard). Later development in that design space gave us
the keyboard with seven shift keys (shift, control, meta, alt, super,
hyper, and front), the legacy of which is still with us today in the X
Window System.[2]

-GAWollman

[1] Which stands for either "operating system with no discernable
acronym" or "West-coast Alternative to ITS".

[2] xmodmap -pm on my machine displays:
shift Shift_L (0x32), Shift_R (0x3e)
lock
control Control_L (0x25), Control_R (0x6d), Control_R (0x42)
mod1 Alt_L (0x40), Alt_R (0x71), Meta_L (0x9c)
mod2 Num_Lock (0x4d)
mod3
mod4 Super_L (0x73), Super_R (0x74), Super_L (0x7f), Hyper_L
(0x80)
mod5 Mode_switch (0x5d), ISO_Level3_Shift (0x7c)

My keyboard cannot generate several of these keycodes.
--
Garrett A. Wollman | What intellectual phenomenon can be older, or more oft
wollman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx| repeated, than the story of a large research program
Opinions not shared by| that impaled itself upon a false central assumption
my employers. | accepted by all practitioners? - S.J. Gould, 1993
.

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