Ctrl key on a standard keyboard. To type Ctrl-Alt-Del,
for example, simply press and release the
CTRL
key
together with the
ALT
key and the front key labeled
DEL.
Likewise, the
Shift
key, as you would expect on
a conventional keyboard, allows you to type capital let-
ters. When you form a chord which includes the
Shift
key with your thumb, the same key or chord you ordi-
narily use to type a lowercase letter will instead produce
the same letter in uppercase.
It is important to note, however, that the
Shift
key (like all the thumb keys) does not just shift the front
keys to upper case, but fully particpates in the chording
function. For example, the word
the
is assigned to the
chord 0RR0. If you press Shift + 0RR0, however, you
get
The
. If the thumb button labelled Shift just shift-
ed characters, you would get
THE
.
As you read the section on Macros, you will see
that the chording principle is very flexible and allows
assignment of over a thousand symbols, functions, or
groups of symbols or functions to chords.
17
Thumb Keys
In addition to the red IBM Trackpoint, there are
four keys on the top rear of the Twiddler2 case. In
clockwise order they are labelled
NUM
,
ALT
,
CTRL
,
and
Shift
. These thumb keys take part in the chording
and combine with the twelve front keys to form addition-
al chords.
Chords using the
NUM
key include the numer-
als. You hold down the
NUM
key with your thumb and
complete the chord by pressing additional keys on the
front. To see how it works, try holding down
NUM
with
your thumb while your other fingers consecutively press
and release the following keys:
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, SP, DEL.
You have just typed the numerals
1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 0.
The
ALT
key accesses the same functions as
an Alt key on a conventional computer keyboard. For
example, to issue the command Alt-x, you simply form a
chord, including the
ALT
key and pressing and releas-
ing the chord for the letter
x
(ML00).
When you form chords by holding down
NUM
and
ALT
together, the front keys
A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H,
SP, DEL, BS, ENT
output the codes for Function keys
F1 through F12.
In similar fashion the
CTRL
key acts like the
16
