Sun Microsystems Type 6 Keyboard

Sun Microsystems keyboard is one of the worst. The following shows the one that is the keyboard for Sun's Ultra 5 computer (circa 2000).

This keyboard i used around 2000. (photo taken during that time) The key feel is mushy, using rubber dome switch. 〔►see Guide to Keyboard Key Switch Mechanisms〕

Some interesting aspects:

• 2 columns of extra function keys on the left: {Stop, Props, Front, Open, Find, Again, Undo, Copy, Paste, Cut}.
• The Caps Lock is at the lower left corner, and Control on the right of A key. 〔►see Control Key and Capslock Key Positions in Old Keyboards〕
• Big Help button on the top left.
• A blank key on top left.
• Esc key is to the left of 1.

I hardly ever use this keyboard or sit in front of this computer. So i don't know what these keys actually do. Not sure the Copy, Paste, etc keys actually work out of box in Solaris. I don't think most of these special keys do anything useful by default. The desktop on unixes at the time (CDE) is quite unusable.

Most of the time, i just telnet/ssh from the PC running Windows NT, using a generic cheap PC keyboard. This Ultra5 is used as a server, it is one of the test bed for releasing our ecommerce software.

Meta Key

The key marked with a diamond ◆ is the Meta key, a key inherited from Lisp Machine's keyboards and today mostly known for its use in Emacs. This key is called Super in Linux today, but is referred to as Meta in Sun's documentation. This key is similar in purpose to the Command key ⌘ command on Apple computer's keyboards, or the Windows key ❖ Window on PC keyboards.

See also:

• Emacs: How to Define Super and Hyper Keys
• List of Emacs Default Keybinding
• Space-cadet, Lisp Machine Keyboards

Compose Key, Alt Graph Key

Note the Compose key and Alt Graph keys. They are both used to input special characters such as é ä ç ¿ £ ¥ ©.

See: Keyboard: Alt Graph Key, Compose Key, Dead Key

The sound key and screen brightness keys seem funny to me, because i'm not sure these keys work out of the box on a typical unix workstation in the 1990s. Not sure if these machines typically have sound capabilities at all (For example, a sound card).