Interesting enough, the ancestors of emacs were on a keyboard where the meta and control keys were in the lower-left corner, and it was somewhat expected that you would move your entire hand to do chording on those while using the other hand for the letter keys.<p>I imagine that resulted in far less pinky-strain.<p>Knight keyboard: <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;world.std.com&#x2F;~jdostale&#x2F;kbd&#x2F;Knight1.jpeg" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;world.std.com&#x2F;~jdostale&#x2F;kbd&#x2F;Knight1.jpeg</a><p>Later followed up with the space cadet keyboard: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space-cadet_keyboard" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Space-cadet_keyboard</a> which added super and hyper.