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What's A 'Scroll Lock' And Why Is It On My Keyboard?

Posted by timothy on from the mysteries-of-the-ancients dept.

Jeff Bauer writes "Today's article in The Straight Dope explains all the weird keys that come with standard PC keyboards. Now if someone could just explain what the 'Alt Graph' key does on my Sun keyboard, enlightement would be at hand ..."

3 of 866 comments (clear)

  1. More interesting question migth be... by eb4x · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Who's the smartass that switched "Caps Lock" and "Ctrl" keys?

  2. Re:Losing the Insert key by thecampbeln · · Score: 3, Insightful
    This is the one key that I ALWAYS remove from my keyboards (which always thrills the crap out of my superiors - "What happened to your keyboard?!"). Anyway, the Insert is always gone from my keyboards, generally along with the capslock (though I do occasionally jab the sensor to turn it on and off, but I hate hitting it accidentally - stupid advanced hunt-n-peck method! ;). I've always wondered about the Scroll Lock key... never had a reason to remove it (as it doesn't piss me off), but always wondered =)

    What keys do you "liberate" from your keyboards?

    --
    "1984" was ment to be a warning, not a guidebook. You hear that Kim Jong-il!? BushCo?!
  3. Re:real application! by Darren.Moffat · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Linux - no it is a kernel and doesn't have a copy buffer ;-)

    Serious though, it depends on which distribution you use and what bits you have installed.

    WindowMaker comes with a command to do this.

    Openwindows (the XView stuff not the OLIT stuff) on SunOS came with a util to do this.

    Standard MIT X Windows also comes with a cut and paste history which lets you "go both ways" between files and the "cut buffer(s)".