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About LinkBacksRead more.And on a full-size layout, do you know what each and every key does?
Read more.And on a full-size layout, do you know what each and every key does?
pause/break button.
Judging by the decade of accumulated grime, AltGr wins by a mile. Scoll Lock is a distant second.
The context menu button to the right of the Alt Gr key (does same as right clicking mouse).
The media and backlight keys.
The ones that come to mind that immediately come to mind that I don't use are Insert, Pause-Break and Scroll Lock.
The first two I know their functions, although the Pause-Break button is mostly because I recall using Break at various times in the BBC Micro days, but Scroll Lock I never actually looked into or went near other than accidentally enabling it and then disabling it once I noticed over the years - the accidentally enabling and disabling part is true of Insert too.
Scroll lock, Pause/Break, AltGr, and the Windows keys.
Oh, and that strange one between the Windows key and CTRL on the right side of the spacebar.
I used to use scroll lock back when I was still running my 8-way KVM. I don't remember ever intentionally pressing any of the others.
In no particular order;
The key with "`/¬" symbols on, alt gr, the one that brings up the menu, ins, home, end, page up, page down, scr lk, pause / break. I do use everything else, so a grand total of 10 keys unused on a 109 key keyboard (counting the clicky multi function digital dial as a key!)
i use most of them, but different keys for different software. The most missed keys though on my work board are the sleep, wake and power buttons that I use a lot at home and I do not understand why don't come as standard. Much more useful than "email" and "home" keys that a number of keyboards ship with
alt+gr is useful when your mouse freezes or you get a weird system hang (not often, but when it happens it can be the difference between nursing it out of it/into task manager or having to do a a hard reset.)
#Idon'tuseTwitter
\ because I don't need anything in DOS
Scroll lock and Pause Break.
Maybe some of the Function keys
I occasionally use Ins still, in some of the work systems or remapped to summat in-game.
¬ is usually the Console in games, which I hack whenever a vendor doesn't carry nearly enough to buy even one of the items I bring back from questing.
I know what most of 'em do, but I never memorise it as it's on Google.
IIRC, Linus had a reasonable vid on what they do and why we still have them on keyboards.
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Originally Posted by Mark Tyson
Surprised to see so many people not use that key. I hate keyboards that have it missing as I use it a lot.
I never use scroll lock and pause/break and very rarely use the `/¬ key but every other key, including ALL the F# keys, I use on a regular basis.
Can't say I use 'Scroll Lock' (though I do press it accidentally on occasion), 'Pause/Break', 'Num Lock' or the right Windows key.
The 'Windows' key.
Scroll lock and pause/break. I'm not a heavy shortcut user, but I do eventually Alt+Tab or Win+Break my way around Windows, or F5 a page in the browser.
I have a first-hand account of how young people don't care about keyboard shortcuts. I was once helping a younger colleague in a lab and I alt-tabbed my way to another window, he asked "how did you do that?," I said "what?," he said "that little window that popped up, what is it?." And then it dawned on me he was talking about the pop-up window that shows up when you press Alt-Tab. Most laypeople I meet also believe keyboard shortcuts are some kind of dark magic and you're a computer god if you press a few keys and things pop up in the screen.
Last edited by trillo_del_diavolo; 05-03-2021 at 11:21 PM.
Apparently Q T Y U P G H J Z X N, the number keys, the F keys, everything to the right of the Return key and all the symbol and modifier keys, as that lot are the only ones with lettering on them.
The W E R O A S D F K L C V B and M keys are either entirely or mostly worn off.
I almost never bother with the num pad, or the main block bottom row keys other than ctrl, space and occasionally alt. Only use a few of the function keys, and very seldom use home end page up page down.
Don't think I've ever used scroll lock. Might have used pause/break once or twice.
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