LINC keyboard. 1962
LINC keyboard

- manual
- LINC_Assembly_Program_2_LAP3_May63.pdf
- manual source http://www.bitsavers.org/pdf/washingtonUniversity/linc/LINC_Assembly_Program_2_LAP3_May63.pdf
2025-10-11 thanks to from Lars Brinkhoff (his git home page https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff) for telling me.
Email from Lars Brinkhoff
2025-07-05 from Lars Brinkhoff (his git home page https://github.com/larsbrinkhoff)
Hello,
- We have previously corresponded about Lispm and Knight keyboards, and the history of the META key.
- I have put forward the theory that Les Earnest invented the meta key, and put it on the SAIL keyboard around 1970.
- However, now I have encountered an even earlier meta key: the one on the LINC keyboard.
- I'm sending you a link to a photo of the keyboard, and a 1963 manual that describes the use of the meta key.
- It's not a modifier key, but starts a command.
- Arguably this is similar to the IMSSS and TV-Edit "edit" key, which was close in time and space to the SAIL keyboard.