ADM-3A Heritage

The ADM-3A was an innovative video display terminal introduced in 1976 and manufactured by Lear Siegler.

The ADM-3A terminal and the ADM42

It has an influential keyboard layout. The use of HJKL keys for moving the cursor, the Control key was on the home row and ESC was easily accessible.

The ADM-3A keyboard layout

In 1976, while working on the ADM-3A, Bill Joy created the vi editor. Although modal editing and vi keys are now widely used, the benefits of the ADM-3A layout have not been retained on modern computer keyboards.

Therefore, one of the main objectives in designing the ADM42 is to revive all of the advantages of the original ADM-3A design and provide an extremely efficient user experience for developers.