character, humour /kohk'bot-l/ Any unusual character, particularly one you can't type because it isn't on your keyboard.
MIT people used to complain about the "control-meta-cokebottle" commands at
SAIL, and
SAIL people complained about the "
altmode-altmode-cokebottle" commands at
MIT. After the demise of the
space-cadet keyboard, "cokebottle" was used less, but was often used to describe weird or non-intuitive keystrokes.
The
OSF/
Motif window manager, "mwm" keystroke for switching to the default keybindings and behaviour is control-meta-
bang. Since
exclamation mark might be thought to look like a Coke bottle,
Motif hackers referred to this keystroke as "cokebottle".
See also
quadruple bucky.
[
Jargon File]
(1995-01-04)