TIL, many of vim’s key bindings, such as the use of hjkl for arrow keys, originate from the Lear Siegler ADM-3A terminal, which Bill Joy used to create the vi editor. Looking at the ADM-3A’s keyboard layout, we can notice other distinctive features:
- The placement of
EscandCtrlare much more convenient - The colon key
:, used in Command mode, can be used without holdingShift - Home and
~share the same key, which is why~represents the home directory in Unix-like operating systems
ADM-3A keyboard layout (source)