Online Computer Terms Dictionary - D

double bucky

Using both the CTRL and META keys. "The command to burn all LEDs is double bucky F."

This term originated on the Stanford extended-ASCII keyboard, and was later taken up by users of the space-cadet keyboard at MIT. A typical MIT comment was that the Stanford bucky bits (control and meta shifting keys) were nice, but there weren't enough of them; you could type only 512 different characters on a Stanford keyboard. An obvious way to address this was simply to add more shifting keys, and this was eventually done; but a keyboard with that many shifting keys is hard on touch-typists, who don't like to move their hands away from the home position on the keyboard. It was half-seriously suggested that the extra shifting keys be implemented as pedals; typing on such a keyboard would be very much like playing a full pipe organ. This idea is mentioned in a parody of a very fine song by Jeffrey Moss called "Rubber Duckie", which was published in "The Sesame Street Songbook" (Simon and Schuster 1971, ISBN 0-671-21036-X). These lyrics were written on May 27, 1978, in celebration of the Stanford keyboard:

                  Double Bucky

  Double bucky, you're the one!
  You make my keyboard lots of fun.
      Double bucky, an additional bit or two:
  (Vo-vo-de-o!)
  Control and meta, side by side,
  Augmented ASCII, nine bits wide!
      Double bucky!  Half a thousand glyphs, plus a few!
          Oh,
          I sure wish that I
          Had a couple of
              Bits more!
          Perhaps a
          Set of pedals to
          Make the number of
              Bits four:
          Double double bucky!
  Double bucky, left and right
  OR'd together, outta sight!
      Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of
      Double bucky, I'm happy I heard of
      Double bucky, I'd like a whole word of you!

  - The Great Quux

See also meta bit, cokebottle, and quadruple bucky.

[Jargon File]

(1994-12-07)