You may notice that the ADM-3A didn't have a CAPS LOCK key. A common mod involved soldering a couple of jumpers so pressing CAPS twice in rapid succession switched caps lock mode on and off. I did that to mine; back then it was fairly common for some systems to only accept uppercase commands. The Teletype ASR-33 didn't have CAPS LOCK either.
I don't know if Bill Joy modded his ADM-3A, but for anyone who wonders why vi uses esc instead of caps lock to switch modes it's because there was no caps lock key back then. I believe Bill Joy and the vi cartel deliberately suppressed the caps lock feature on early terminals to make vi users miserable in the future.
I don't know if Bill Joy modded his ADM-3A, but for anyone who wonders why vi uses esc instead of caps lock to switch modes it's because there was no caps lock key back then. I believe Bill Joy and the vi cartel deliberately suppressed the caps lock feature on early terminals to make vi users miserable in the future.