Editing 2583: Chorded Keyboard

{{comic
| number    = 2583
| date      = February 18, 2022
| title     = Chorded Keyboard
| image     = chorded_keyboard.png
| titletext = And even though it all went wrong / I'll stand before the lord of song / with nothing on my tongue but 'I don't understand, I swear I backed up my keyboard config before messing with it'
}}

==Explanation==
{{incomplete|Created by LEONARD COHEN - Someone with proper computer knowledge should probably elaborate on the terms "chorded keyboard" and "keyboard config". Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}

This strip is a parody of Leonard Cohen's "Hallelujah". Cueball has somehow set up his computer so that, upon pressing a certain combination of keys on his keyboard, the system will automatically type out the word "hallelujah" (xkcd's all-caps typesetting makes it unclear how the word is capitalized).

Technically, a {{w|chorded keyboard}} is one in which (nearly) all inputs are made by simultaneous pressing of a given combination of a limited number of keys, such as a literal handful of non-alphabetic keys that the user learns to combine to represent the key-presses of more standard keyboards. The workings of such a keyboard tends to be handled internally, sending to the computer the signal(s) that ''would'' have been sent from its larger cousin.

By inclusion of traditional key descriptions for a 'standard' keyboard (e.g. the 104-key US QWERTY version that Randall is probably most familiar with), the meaning is probably instead that of using a combination of normally single-use keys (the 'H' and a cursor) with others, including modifiers ('shift' and 'control'), i.e. 'chording' ''with'' his keyboard. This seems to go beyond regular use (shift and a character changing the character case, ctrl and a character may give a editing command) or normal combinations (ctrl, alt and the 'e' may result in the 'é', where the keyboard does not otherwise support it) and even goes beyond [[378: Real Programmers|emacs-like serialised metacommands]] which is a software feature. It seems more likely that such a setup is handled within the computer, either defined within the OS or (as is often the case with specialist configurable gaming keyboards) via the driver installed to mediate such esoteric keyboard combinations as the user has predefined for themselves.

Cueball's combination-keypress may in fact be better termed a 'macro', in some contexts. The single event, somehow triggered by this particular simultaneous multi-key input, invokes the injection of a pre-programmed sequence of standard characters into the appropriate text-buffer/-stream in leiu of manual input.

==Transcript==
{{incomplete transcript|Do NOT delete this tag too soon.}}
[Cueball is sitting in an office chair at his desk, hands on his keyboard, looking at his desktop.]
I heard there was a secret chord

That David press and it typed a word

[The camera zoomed in on Cueball, and we see him from the waist up]

But you don't use a chorded keyboard do you

[The third frames are like the first, except Cueball's arms are moved]

It goes like this <control> and <shift>

The other hand hits H and <left>

[The fourth frame is like the first and third, but the arms are moved again]

And All at once it types out
Hallelujah

{{comic discussion}}