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I was reading about vim the other day and found out why it used hjkl keys as arrow keys. When Bill Joy created the vi text editor he used the ADM-3A terminal, which had the arrows on hjkl keys. Naturally he reused the same keys and the rest is history!

Here is how the hjkl keys looked:

ADM-3A keyboard's hjkl keys with arrows.

And here is the whole terminal that vi was created on:

Lear Siegler's ADM-3A computer terminal.

Since vim is derived from vi, it uses the same hjkl keys.

And while we're at it, notice where the ESC key is positioned:

Lear Siegler's ADM-3A computer terminal's full keyboard.

That's why the ESC is used to change between vi modes! Because it's so close and easy to reach.

Also ever wondered why home directory is ~ in UNIX? Look at the HOME key in upper right corner!

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My post has generated a lot of awesome responses, see hacker news, osnews, and reddit discussions (two of them on /r/programming and /r/vim).

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