h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

The claim that the 'hotkeys', as this article describes them, actually made things harder is pretty surprising - they were a Good Thing as I recall. There were two significant advantages with the automatic expansion of keywords used by most of Sinclair's computers:

(1) it usually meant much less actual typing - for all the most popular keywords you only had to hit one key, and the entire word you wanted would appear. For the really obscure stuff it was a little tedious, but for most code it was just great. (Given the quality of Sinclair's keyboards before the Spectrum+ this keystroke saving was essential!)

(2) you had the inestimable advantage that ALL of the words in the language were written out on the keyboard. This meant that (unlike the article implies) you didn't have to memorise anything - it was all written down. It meant that you had a reference card at your fingertips. It also encouraged experimentation - when I had my Spectrum, I didn't rest until I'd found out what ALL of the keywords on the keyboard did, so it was a great contribution to the learning experience.



Then I got a BBC Micro...

"Single key programming" was available for the BBC too, in the form of the "Commander" ROM. I've got one lying round the house somewhere, complete with a sheet of unused keycap stickers...