Exiting emacs

Novice emacs users often find themselves asking what the keyboard sequence is for exiting emacs. Here it is:

meta key
Meta
 		+
super key
Super
 		+
left foot pedal
Left footpedal
 +
super key
Circle
 		+
control key
Control
 		+
Q key
Q

The novices haven't grasped the logical arrangement of the emacs keyboard commands. Always remember this emacs rule:

The simpler the action, the more modifier keys you have to keep pressed at the same time.

Exiting emacs is of course one of the simplest actions that there is. Therefore it requires five modifier keys to be held down.

Another emacs rule is:

The terminals that we originally designed emacs for didn't have function keys. So emacs cannot portably follow the Alt+F4 CUA convention.

The developers of emacs reserve the right to change this key sequence, in future versions, in the event that advances in human interface device hardware make it too easy to exit emacs.

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