Here in the terminal room they have these beautiful new iMacs with the 1440x900 flat panel screen. After I had played around for a bit with all the nice gadgets and got impressed by the sleek performance of their new Safari Web Browser I decided to get to work and installed the new rootless X Server Apple is now offering for download. All went well and I was soon looking at my first xterm. Work could begin, so I thought, but then it hit me. Where the hell are all the keys on this Swedish Mac Keyboard? No {, no ], no * not even a $*. Basically everything I need for programming was missing. Eventually I discovered that while the keys were not labeled all the necessary keys were reachable using combinations of Alt and Shift. I went on and even found how to start the Xquartz server with the swedish keymap applied, only to discover the in this configuration the Alt key was acting as Meta and thus lost all its power to create any of my most wanted characters.
If I ever buy a mac, I would have to get a 3 button mouse and a proper keyboard with it. I wonder how programmers at Apple work? Maybe there is a special high clearance programmers keyboard available with all the secret keys labeled properly and working. This model which would wreck havoc in the Mac user population, if leaked to the unwashed, easily confused, masses. It would leave Apples hot-lines go into meltdown as desperate users try to get help in picking the right keys. What is the world coming to?