Dave Ladd writes:
>> [I mentioned Sun's latest keyboard rearrangement on help-lucid-emacs]
> What? Sun changed keyboard layouts? Arrrrgggghhhhh!!!!!
> I hesitate to ask, but where are control and escape?

Yes, they did.  I'll summarize here for the benefit of those who
are planning which keys should do what in their Emacs packages.

Sun has a tendency to make radical changes to its keyboards at
regular intervals.  The previous keyboard we were getting with
all our Sparc machines was divided into three areas:  11 "L"
function keys, the main keyboard including a row of "F" keys
flush against the digit row, and a keypad group which doubled
as cursor motion keys.

Our latest IPX shipment came with a new keyboard.  Here's what
it looks like:

There are four areas on the keyboard, left-to-right.  The top
row (with the "F" keys) is now separated from the other rows
by about one row-height.

The leftmost area has the same ten keys "Stop", "Again", etc.,
although they no longer have "L" labels.  The "Help" key is on
the top row next to the "F" keys.

The main keyboard looks like this:

???    F1 F2 F3 F4  F5 F6 F7 F8  F9 F10 F11 F12

ESC  1  2  3  4  5  6  7  8  9  0  -  =  \  `
TAB   Q  W  E  R  T  Y  U  I  O  P  [  ]  BkSp
Cntrl  A  S  D  F  G  H  J  K  L  ;  '  Return
Shift   Z  X  C  V  B  N  M  ,  .  /     Shift

Note that the Return key has become wide instead of tall,
the LineFeed key has disappeared to make room for a wider
Shift key, the Backspace key has moved down one row, and
the Delete key has moved off the main keyboard!

Since Sun has always been of the "Delete, not Backspace"
religion, I don't know how to interpret their moving Delete
off the main keyboard.  Maybe Sun software is going to switch
over to using Backspace, or maybe users are expected to
reach over to the Del key now.  (Del is in the next area
over, on the same row as Backspace.)  (I.e., farther over
and on a different row than it used to be.)

The lack of LFD is what brought this up in the first place;
it might be a good idea to phase out the idea of LFD has a
special key in Emacs modes, since new Sun users (as well as
users of most other machines I've seen) will only be able to
get it as C-j.

I've heard Emacs 19 will be using LFD instead of ESC to
terminate incremental search.  Since even Sun seems to have
abandoned LFD, maybe RET would be a better choice.

Happily, Control, ESC, and Caps Lock have not been moved!

The backquote/tilde has moved up to the top row, and the
backslash/vertical bar has moved down from the "F" row.

There are still 12 "F" keys, arranged in three groups of
four across the top of the keyboard.  There is also an
unlabeled "mystery" key between Help and F1, which I've
shown as "???".

The two groups to the right of the main keyboard look like
this:

   PrScr  ScrLk  Pause        A      B      C      D

   Insert Home   PgUp         NumLk  /      *      -
   Del    End    PgDn         7      8      9      +
                              4      5      6      +
          Up                  1      2      3      Enter
   Left   Down   Right           0          .      Enter

The keypad area is the same as before, and continues to have
secondary labels for arrows, "Home", etc.  But there are new
cursor motion keys that do the same things even with NumLock
turned on.  (Actually, there is one difference in the keypad:
The "=" key is gone, and NumLock has been moved down from the
"F" row to take its place.)

The keys labelled "A", "B", "C", "D" have funny symbols for
adjusting volume, brightness, etc.

There are no separate LEDs, but CapsLock, ScrollLock, Compose,
and NumLock all have small lights mounted inside the keys.

Summary:  LineFeed, Delete, and keypad = have disappeared;
backquote, backslash, Help, and NumLock have been moved;
special cursor motion keys have been introduced.  I expect
the major effects this will have on software design will be
an inclination to map Backspace to be the same as Delete used
to be; putting less emphasis on LineFeed as a useful function
key; and keeping the keypad in "numeric" mode most of the time.

The old Backspace/Delete controversy will be mostly alleviated
in Emacs 19, where (at least on X systems) Backspace and C-h
will be distinguishable.  We can have Backspace and Delete do
the same thing by default, with C-h still bound as the help
prefix.

The good news is we won't be hitting backquote instead of
Return, or F2 instead of a digit key, any more.  The bad news
is that WE'LL HAVE TO LEARN ANOTHER STUPID KEYBOARD AGAIN!
Oh, well, I guess that's the price of progress.  :-)

								-- Dave