[readthenotes1]

The first Smalltalk-80 used still required the left arrow for assignment.

It was a real PITA because it was underbar (_, shift-dash) on the keyboard iirc.

Any assignment made me want to drink, thus the character name.

[jecel]

In some equipment, like the Teletype Model 33[1], you had left arrow and up arrow instead of _ and ^. This was part of the 1963 draft of ASCII, but was changed in the final version. In the early 1980s there was still a lot of equipment by DEC and Xerox stuck with the original version, which was what the creators of Smalltalk-80 were familiar with.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bit-paired_keyboard

[slim]

Cuis smalltalk has left arrow gliph for assignement assigned to underbar. I did not know it is historically accurate, thanks! :raises his cup: