Bucky bit
In today's world, Bucky bit is a topic that has captured the attention of millions of people around the world. Whether due to its historical relevance, its impact on modern society or simply because of its popularity, Bucky bit is a topic that leaves no one indifferent. From its origins to the present day, Bucky bit has played a crucial role in people's lives, and that is why more and more people are seeking to learn more about this fascinating topic. In this article, we will explore in depth the different facets of Bucky bit, from its origins to its influence today, to discover its true reach and relevance in society.
In computing, a bucky bit is a bit in a binary representation of a character that is set by pressing on a keyboard modifier key other than the shift key.
Overview
Setting a bucky bit changes the output character. A bucky bit allows the user to type a wider variety of characters and commands while maintaining a reasonable number of keys on a keyboard.
Some of the keys corresponding to bucky bits on modern keyboards are the alt key, control key, meta key, command key (⌘), super key, and option key.
In ASCII, the bucky bit is usually the 8th bit (also known as meta bit). However, in older character representations wider than 8 bits, more high bits could be used as bucky bits. In the modern X Window System, bucky bits are bits 18–23 of an event code.
History
The term was invented at Stanford and is based on Niklaus Wirth's nickname "Bucky". Niklaus Wirth was first to suggest an EDIT key to set the eighth bit of a 7-bit ASCII character sometime in 1964 or 1965.
Bucky bits were used heavily on keyboards designed by Tom Knight at MIT, including space-cadet keyboards used on LISP machines. These could contain as many as seven modifier keys: SHIFT, CTRL, META, HYPER, SUPER, TOP, and GREEK (also referred to as FRONT).
See also
References
- ^ a b Raymond, Eric S.; Cameron, Debra; Rosenblatt, Bill (1996). Learning GNU Emacs, 2nd Edition. Sebastopol, CA: O'Reilly. pp. 408–409. ISBN 1-56592-152-6.
- ^ The Jargon File. Xinware Corporation. 2007. p. 128. ISBN 978-1-897454-66-4.
- ^ "Space Cadet keyboard". home.comcast.net. Archived from the original on 6 September 2015. Retrieved 12 January 2022.
External links
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