So on which visual terminal was ESC to the left of A? Or are you perhaps referring to ex, an antecedent of vi, which was designed for hardcopy terminals? If so, which hardcopy terminal had ESC to the left of A? I've looked at the images for some and can't find that.
The keyboard for the ADM-3A shows a Ctrl key to the left of A. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADM-3A#Hardware
The VT100 shows CAPS LOCK to the left of A. https://vt100.net/docs/vt100-ug/chapter1.html#S1.1
So on which visual terminal was ESC to the left of A? Or are you perhaps referring to ex, an antecedent of vi, which was designed for hardcopy terminals? If so, which hardcopy terminal had ESC to the left of A? I've looked at the images for some and can't find that.