deskthority

Hi there,

I'm doing some work about the symbols in the space-cadet keyboard. I know its alpha area has APL legends on top of these normal characters, and the greek as front printing. But I need some help to identify what symbols there are in the front printing of the number row, and in the those punctation keys, as the attached photo shows, they are the symbols right above those added red lines. What kind of symbols are they? What are the unicode codes of them? Any help or further info is appreciated.

Thank you!

The one under 4 is a cent sign. The one under 5 is a degree sign. 7 is a dividing sign. 8 is a multiplying sign. 9 is a new paragraph symbol. The one under + is an approximates sign. Under - is a long dash (in modern word programs you get this from --- converted). Most of the others are graphing stuff. Graph a triangle. Graph a square. Graph a circle, sin, so on.

± = § (section sign)

1 = dagger

2 = double dagger

3 = nabla (upside down delta)

Thank you @Sangdrax @pdc

With your help, I figure out most of these symbols, their unicode name and codes, as the following:

± § U+00A7 section sign
1 † U+2020 dagger
2 ‡ U+2021 double dagger
3 ∇ U+2207 nabla, gradient
4 ¢ U+00A2 cent sign
5 ° U+00B0 degree sign
6
7 ÷ U+00F7 division sign
8 × U+00D7 multiplication sign
9 ¶ U+00B6 pilcrow sign, parapragh sign
0 ○ U+25CB white circle or
0 ◯ U+25EF large circle
- ⸻ U+2E3B three-em dash　or two-em dash ??
+ ≈ U+2248 almost equal to
< ⊏ U+228f square image of
⌐ U+2310 reversed not sign
⨽ U+2A3D righthand interior product
> ⊐ U+2290 square original of
¬ U+00AC not sign
⨼ U+2A3C interior product
[ 〚 U+301A left white square bracket
] 〛 U+301B right white square bracket
～
|
; ‥ U+2025 two dot leader ??
" • U+2022 bullet
< ≪ U+226A much less than
> ≫ U+226B much greater than
? ∫ U+222C integral

A few are unsure and marked in tailing "??", those on number 6, ~`, and |\ keys are still unknown.

Oh, ± is not §. Thank you for the high resolution photo @webwit

BTW, those are not APL legends. Those are legends for Greek, mathematics and symbolic logic.
A APL keyboard uses some of those same symbols but with a specific keyboard layout which is different.

Quick trivia: The cyclone symbol actually has a unicode representation, but it is typically used for emoji cyclone by most modern browsers. Unfortunately I cannot post the symbol here because it crashes the SQL instance. Here are images at least:

U+222E ∮ contour integral (integration along a closed curve)

Ha! I suppose that is indeed an integral, but it looks far more like the cyclone symbol.

Findecanor wrote: ↑BTW, those are not APL legends. Those are legends for Greek, mathematics and symbolic logic.
A APL keyboard uses some of those same symbols but with a specific keyboard layout which is different.

That means much the same thing.

so you're saying AZERTY and QWERTY US are much the same thing ? (a quick exemple)

6 U+2395 ⎕ known as the Quad in APL-land.
The "two leader" guess above I think is more likely ¨ U+00A8 Diaeresis, again from APL-land.

I think the assumption above that all of the APL symbols have been accounted for on the fronts of the keys is mistaken and I think we need to call in an expert and I know just where to find one @dyalogapl

accidental double post.

Myoth wrote: ↑so you're saying AZERTY and QWERTY US are much the same thing ? (a quick exemple)

I'm saying that APL was written by a mathematician and uses the language and symbols of math. It's hard to draw much of a line between math symbolics and APL symbolics.

Additionally, I can give you examples of APL symbols that are not on the front of those keys. Actually, there are several symbols that are not on the keyboard at all that I suspect may have been made with additional chording.

For example, ⌹ which is a monadic quad divide isn't on the keyboard but may have been formed by composing Quad and Divide for example.

APL is still a very active language in the domains which it excels in. I've exchanged a number of tweets with Dyalog before and they're really cool people. If they're not familiar with this specifics of this keyboard's use I bet they'll either know someone who is or be our best bet for an educated guess.

This could be useful too: https://web.archive.org/web/20150910154 ... nical.html

hhkbp2 wrote: ↑Thank you @Sangdrax @pdc
4 ¢ U+00A2 cent sign

I think you're wrong with this one, at least for me looks like a cedilla (ç, Ç). Cedilla is a latin letter used in portuguese, french and some weird languages.
There you have:
ASCII 135 for ç (alt + 135)
ASCII 128 for Ç (alt + 128)

take a look here:
https://webwit.nl/input/misc/spacecadet/4.jpg

There's definitely something above the c.

Oh, I see. Maybe this can help
http://www.elcodigoascii.com.ar/codigos ... i-196.html
That thing under the 9 looks like a pilcrow ¶ Depending of the font used it can be really different so it wouldn't surprise me.

Thank you guys. Almost figure out all of them except the two on the front of "~`" and "|\".

Those legends of greek letters in the front of "U", "O", "N" look too close, need more help to identify them. And what letter is it in the front of "J"?

If I understand you correctly:

U → Greek upsilon: Υ υ
O → Greek omicron: Ο ο
N → Greek nu: Ν ν

No idea what the one in front of J is.

Daniel Beardsmore wrote: ↑If I understand you correctly:

U → Greek upsilon: Υ υ
O → Greek omicron: Ο ο
N → Greek nu: Ν ν

No idea what the one in front of J is.

Thanks! It might be a stupid question to ask: how could you tell the difference of these three Greek from each other? Especially the ones Greek nu and upsilon, they look so alike.

It looks like the difference between V and U to me; the nu comes to a point at the bottom, and the upsilon is rounded.

__red__ wrote: ↑I think the assumption above that all of the APL symbols have been accounted for on the fronts of the keys is mistaken and I think we need to call in an expert and I know just where to find one @dyalogapl

Hi, Jay from Dyalog here. Of the characters on the fronts of the keys, the following look a bit like characters commonly used in APL:

↑ ∇ ∘ ⎕ ÷ × ○ (U+2191 U+2207 U+2218 U+2395 U+00f7 U+00d7 U+25cb)
⍵ ∊ ⍴ ⍳ (U+2375 U+220a U+2374 U+2373)
⍺ ¨ (U+237a U+00a8)

However, given that there are so many other Greek characters on the key fronts that are not commonly used in APL, on balance it does not look at all like a keyboard designed to be used for APL. And of course the layout is nothing at all like that of common APL keyboards (see e.g. http://dfns.dyalog.com/n_keyboards.htm).

Regards,
Jay.

Welcome!

The symbols on the front of the A-Z alphas can be identified by typing "a" through "z" (lowercase) using the Symbol font. There are two exceptions that I can spot:

1. The J key has a cursive theta symbol (uppercase J in the Symbol font).
2. The V key has a cursive sigma symbol (uppercase V in the Symbol font).

Guys, thank you all for the help!

hhkbp2 wrote: ↑Those legends of greek letters in the front of "U", "O", "N" look too close, need more help to identify them. And what letter is it in the front of "J"?

The J is the Greek letter Yot. I am not sure which yot it is, but it's a yot. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J#Computing_codes

Specifically, there are three Unicode symbols

dotless yot ȷ: used in mathmatics. (U+0237)
lowercase yot ϳ: used in ancient Greek (U+03F3)
upercase yot Ϳ: added for completion. (U+037F)

Again, I don't know what you are trying to accomplish doing this, but I am working on a similar project.

Also, I'd like to know what the key on the front of the d symbol is, as well as the keys on the fronts of the arrow hand keys.

sail4sea wrote: ↑

hhkbp2 wrote: ↑ Also, I'd like to know what the key on the front of the d symbol is, as well as the keys on the fronts of the arrow hand keys.

Here are some more pictures of individual keys if that helps.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/obra/albu ... 6814/page2

and my album here:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/142937728 ... 593174077/