[submeta]

Interesting to see the Symbolics keyboard. As an Emacs user I had reprogrammed my ThinkPad keyboard (Windows) so that

Alt -> Control

Windows-key and Menu Key -> Alt

Control keys -> Windows key

So without having ever seen a Symbolics keyboard and without knowing the history behind emacs keyboard layout I remapped my keyboard so that I had very quick access to Control and Alt (= Meta) keys.

On my Macbook it's not that easy. I could remap the Command key to become a Control key, but many Mac shortcuts heavily rely on the Command key. So that's no option.

[DonHopkins]

The most important thing that distinguished the Lisp Machine keyboard was that it had dedicated parenthesis keys. According to my sources, that was so you could hold a Hefty bag of nitrous oxide in one hand, and type s-expressions with the other. (Gumby can you verify this? ;) )

[lispm]

I have a new style Symbolics keyboard. This one has a very sharp front and a heavy metal body. From time to time it serves well in a guillotine, executing obnoxious unix weenies with a Lispm keyboard.

[RichardHeart]

You might be able to put "symbolics" keys on your keyboard: https://deskthority.net/photos-f62/round-6-the-cappening-t15... Don't make the mistake I did and focus too hard on the tool and not enough on the work :)

[klibertp]

I used "Keyboard Maestro" for this. I tried out some other tools, but they mostly didn't work or were too bothersome to configure. It's definitely worth the cost, as it made a Mac usable to me, although my keymap is quite different from yours, which is kind of a point with this kind of software :)

I was using Linux and StumpWM (a Common Lisp/Emacs-based WM, and Enlightenment before that) for a couple of years, so I thought that full support for personal keymaps is a given in any serious computing environment. I was pretty shocked to learn that on Mac OS you can do very little keybinding, if exchanging a few keys positions can be even called that. Fortunately, it looks like I'm going back to Linux soon.

[geoelectric]

Worth noting that Mac lets you remap the control, alt, and cmd keys to one another. It's been hidden in the keyboard settings under a "Modifier Keys..." button for a major version or three now, and is stored per keyboard (nice for mechanicals with a keycap swap).

The new MBPs (possibly anything on Sierra?) add CapsLock as a mapping target and both CapsLock and Esc as a mapped value, presumably to get around only having the soft Esc key in the touchbar. It's also nice for Esc as meta, though.

That obviates the need for Karabiner in the 99% case, though I still use Keyboard Maestro for macro and text expansion.

[klibertp]

> Worth noting that Mac lets you remap the control, alt, and cmd keys to one another.

Yeah, but that's all it allows you to do. In other words, if you exchange Ctrl and Cmd so that "normal" Ctrl+c/Ctrl+v works you need to press Ctrl+space for Spotlight. I don't want that. I want to leave Ctrl where it is, and only make Ctrl+c/Ctrl+v (as an example) behave as expected.

[submeta]

There is Karabiner for Mac. It let's you remap every key of your Mac. For instance I remapped the enter key to behave like a Control key if I use it in combination with another key. Otherwise (if I just hit enter it behaves like the enter key)

[klibertp]

Karabiner is a disaster.

From the configuration file format, which is XML but not really, to the fact it doesn't work for Sierra and it won't work for Sierra because the author(s) decided to rewrite the whole app and stopped updating the original one, to the GUI straight out of the 90's... I can't find any other word for describing it. Disaster fits.

Keyboard Maestro is a paid app. It's reasonably cheap, but as a long time Linux user, I was shocked I need to pay at all for something I'd consider an essential part of the OS. But you can try KM for free for some time and decide if it's worth its price. Personally, I'm very happy with it. Its UI could be a bit better, but its functional and lets you easily add and organize your own mappings. Karabiner, on the other hand, is a giant blob of pre-defined mappings you can disable or enable (and adding your own is a pain).

The rewrite of Karabiner promises some of the features of Keyboard Maestro, but it's still underway.

[rerx]

It does not work on Sierra yet.

[submeta]

I know and I haven't updated to Sierra just because of that. If I knew that Keyboard Maestro gives me all of the features of it I'd even pay fifty dollars to get it.

[flukus]

As a tmux/vim user those extra control keys look amazing, there are too many layers fighting over too many control keys in my current setup, I'd love to have something like a dedicated vim accelerator, a dedicated tmux one, a dedicated console one and a dedicated desktop manager one.

Is anyone selling keyboards like this? What happened to those really expensive customizable keyboards from a few years back?