THE VIDEO SHELF · leap keys interface
Leap Technology
A promotional video for Leap, the navigation technology invented by Jef Raskin, demonstrated on the Canon Cat computer around 1987. It shows keyboard-driven search and cursor positioning in place of a mouse.
Why HN readers recommended it
HN uses it as the visual reference for Leap keys and Raskin's interface ideas whenever jump-to-text navigation or command palettes come up.
This is a summary from the source dataset, not an endorsement by Hacker News or the video creator.
Video & recommendation details
- Creator / channel
- aamoviebb
- Topic
- leap keys interface
- Format
- demo
- Level
- general
- HN recommenders in dataset
- 2
- HN mentions in dataset
- 12
- Recommendation years in dataset
- 2014–2026
These counts and years describe the included Hacker News records; they are not YouTube views or the video’s publication date.
From the original HN conversations
Excerpts from the recorded comments. Follow each source for the full comment and surrounding discussion.
I had read a lot about the Cat, but never saw it in action, so I decided to look for a video. This is a fascinating view into Raskin's user interface concepts. The world might have been a very different place if Jobs hadn't interfered …
fzzzy on Hacker News · 2016-09
In Restoring YC's Xerox Alto: how our boot disk was trashed with random dataMore on the Canon Cat: [LINK] [LINK] There are also a few previous HN discussions on this machine. EDIT: I just have to post this lovely scene from the original video separately. This is about human-computer interaction after all, isn't it! [VIDEO] Aren't we actually …
marttt on Hacker News · 2020-01
In Leap Technology (keyboard vs. mouse on a Canon Cat machine, ca 1987)
Summaries, classifications and recommendation records are from the HackerTube source dataset. Read about this library and its limitations.