2025-03-23 16:41 UTC
@kenshirriff In 1977 and 1978, I was a high school nerd in Kansas City who went with my step-dad to the local computer user group meetings. One night, Chuck Moore, inventor of the Forth language, was the featured speaker.
He gave a good talk about the language's philosophy and showed how to write interesting programs. But he used a freaky data entry device -- a collection of five switches he worked with one hand. I'd never seen anything like it.
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Replies (1)
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@mikeolson@mastodon.social 2025-03-23 16:43
@kenshirriff He was mostly there to talk Forth, but a bunch of us were curious about the device. He showed how he could chord the switches, enter different letters. He was pretty fast at typing with it. I'm positive, in retrospect, that he'd built himself an Englebart keyset, and had gotten good at using it. I appreciate your post for explaining a 45-year-old mystery to me! I did write some Forth code afterwards, but used a regular keyboard for it. 2/2