bucky bits /buh'kee bits/ n.
1. obs. The bits produced by the CONTROL and META shift keys
on a SAIL keyboard (octal 200 and 400 respectively), resulting in
a 9-bit keyboard character set. The MIT AI TV (Knight) keyboards
extended this with TOP and separate left and right CONTROL and
META keys, resulting in a 12-bit character set; later, LISP
Machines added such keys as SUPER, HYPER, and GREEK (see space-cadet keyboard). 2.
By extension, bits associated with `extra' shift keys on any
keyboard, e.g., the ALT on an IBM PC or command and option keys
on a Macintosh.
It has long been rumored that `bucky bits' were named for
Buckminster Fuller during a period when he was consulting at
Stanford. Actually, bucky bits were invented by Niklaus Wirth
when he was at Stanford in 1964-65; he first suggested
the idea of an EDIT key to set the 8th bit of an otherwise 7-bit
ASCII character). It seems that, unknown to Wirth, certain
Stanford hackers had privately nicknamed him `Bucky' after a
prominent portion of his dental anatomy, and this nickname
transferred to the bit. Bucky-bit commands were used in a number
of editors written at Stanford, including most notably TV-EDIT
and NLS.
The term spread to MIT and CMU early and is now in general
use. Ironically, Wirth himself remained unaware of its derivation
for nearly 30 years, until GLS dug up this history in early 1993!
See double bucky, quadruple bucky.