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From: moroney@world.std.spaamtrap.com (Michael Moroney)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec,comp.os.vms
Subject: Re: Software used for diagrams in DEC documentation
Date: Mon, 25 Apr 2011 20:54:29 +0000 (UTC)
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koehler@eisner.nospam.encompasserve.org (Bob Koehler) writes:

>In article <ip333g$ruq$1@Iltempo.Update.UU.SE>, Johnny Billquist <bqt@softjar.se> writes:
>> 
>> I know... So are VT05.

>   So the ADM-3 was an advancement?  (Caps lock was a dip switch under
>   a screwed-on cover.)

Hah!  I remember the ADM-3A's in the computer center lab at college.  The
terminal was locked into all-caps mode.  The Unix people, who needed lower
case, would open the cover, often prying it open with force because they
had no screwdriver, to put the terminal in lower case mode.  Other
computers didn't understand lower case and those who used them put them
into upper case.  I think the operators were told to keep the terminals in
upper case mode because the computer center's mainframe computers were the
ones which worked in upper case only mode, the Unix systems belonged to
the computer science department.  Other groups (engineering, statistics
etc.) used the computer center's mainframe.

Those terminals quickly had those little covers bent or lost, and many
ADM-3A's failed because the little switch pack got damaged by being
repeatedly switched between upper and lower case modes without anyone
being delicate enough with those poor little switches.

A "Caps Lock" switch seems to be such a no-brainer these days...