You only have an Alt Gr key on computer keyboards, it was only introduced by IBM in 1985. Before Alt Gr, a couple of symbols were missing from German keyboards to make space for äöü and ß.
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Replying to @moritzkraehe @mwichary
[{}]@| were missing, for example, and there wasn't a backslash either. That became a Problem when MS-DOS started using \ for subdirectories, of course...
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Replying to @moritzkraehe @mwichary
The point is, I'm guessing they shuffled a few more symbols around when introducing that key (or maybe even when adapting the QWERTZ layout for computers in the first place) because a few keys break the rule from the first tweetm
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Replying to @moritzkraehe
Here are the 1981 and 1985+ AltGr German keyboard photos that I have, but I also see a bunch of German electric typewriters that don’t follow that rule. It’s interesting!pic.twitter.com/VLxzQUzWae
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Replying to @mwichary @moritzkraehe
It seems like even the 1981 had some sort of a AltGr-like system (with front legends), maybe using Ctrl?
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Replying to @mwichary @moritzkraehe
My guess when it comes to electric typewriters is that later on the velocity problem was solved in some other way?
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Replying to @mwichary
Yeah, they must have solved it in some way, otherwise they couldn't have had , and ? on the same key.
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Replying to @moritzkraehe @mwichary
The tertiary symbols on the first one are fascinating. I'm not 100% sure what the keys say but I don't think it even has a Ctrl key. That's Alt below left shift, but I can't figure out what the key below right shift is supposed to be.
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Replying to @moritzkraehe
Ctrl is next to A, Caps Lock is below right Shift.
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Neither did many other PC users. That’s why they flipped them to be more like Selectric a few years down the road. :·)
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