Your Name wrote on 14. January 2016:   
   >   
   > In article <87vb6v241c.fsf@usenet.ankman.de>, Andreas Kohlbach   
   >  wrote:   
   >> Your Name wrote on 13. January 2016:   
   >> >   
   >> > Possibly - I really couldn't be bothered playing with the crappy things   
   >> > long enough to find out / remember. The commands were printed on the   
   >> > "keys" themselves though.   
   >>   
   >> Yep, I once saw it. I was amazed when I visited the UK in 1986 with other   
   >> students and saw the kids of the host family had one. Had no idea why   
   >> words are printed on the keys.   
   >    
   >   
   > Yep. It wasn't possible to simply type "I" and "F" for the IF   
   > statement, you were *forced* to press Shift-Function-M (or whatever the   
   > key combination was). That silliness and the ridiculously bad   
   > "keyboards" (flat membrane keyboards on the ZX80 and ZX81, and small   
   > rubberised keys on the Spectrum) made trying to program the toys a task   
   > in futility and stupidity.   
      
   Although I would think that somebody who got used to this is then faster   
   writing code than with a "real keyboard".   
      
   The problem when the Sinclair series (the QL was already a bomb) died out   
   a few years later their users had no choice but to get a real keyboard on   
   a future computer, they would have to learn to for example type "load"   
   instead of just "j".   
   --   
   Andreas   
      
   I use a Unix based operating system, which means I get laid almost as often   
   as I have to reboot my computer.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: Agency HUB, Dunedin - New Zealand | Fido<>Usenet Gateway (3:770/3)