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Is Caps Lock Dead?

Posted by timothy on from the remapping-is-the-answer dept.

An anonymous reader asks "Recently I have noticed that I haven't used caps lock other for any purpose other than hitting it by accident. Once upon a time, COBOL was written in all caps, and other languages like BASIC and Fortran were not case sensitive. Capitals were the way to go for writing code. Does the caps lock key serve any purpose any more, and if not, should it be removed, moved, or replaced?"

10 of 1,206 comments (clear)

  1. Well my roomate has this... by ForestGrump · · Score: 5, Interesting

    escape and caps lock key switch.
    http://www.cs.ucr.edu/~beyert/articles/es cclock.ht m

    -Grump
    bet you tim!

    --
    Is it true that more people vote for the winner of American Idol, than vote for the president? -Ali G.
    1. Re:Well my roomate has this... by EvanED · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Sounds dangerous... with the number of times I've hit caps by accident, I don't think I'd want to hit esc by accident...

  2. Caps Lock? Who cares about Caps Lock? by sycomonkey · · Score: 5, Interesting

    They still haven't even bothered to get rid of the Scroll Lock button yet... What makes you think Caps Lock is going away any time soon?

    --
    --The universe will not be altered by forum threads, even those which are very wry. --Tycho Brahe (Penny Arcade)
  3. Re:Not everyone is a programer by Slayk · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Legal docs have quite a few all-caps sections, I believe.

    That's about all I notice when I skim over a license agreement, anyway.

  4. Re:Yes by ptbarnett · · Score: 4, Interesting
    Here's how I made capslock an extra control in Windows 2000/XP.

    If you still want a caps-lock for some reason, you can swap them with this binary value:

    00 00 00 00 00 00 00 00
    03 00 00 00 1D 00 3A 00
    3A 00 1D 00 00 00 00 00

    It's the first thing I do when installing Windows on new systems. If a client gives me a computer for use during a project (even a short one), I make the same change and put it back before I leave on the last day.

    However, I'm considering dropping the caps-lock key altogether and making both into control keys. When I swap them, most people have a lot of trouble using my keyboard -- which is either a problem or a feature, depending on your point of view.

  5. Engineering Drawings by pipingguy · · Score: 4, Interesting


    95.84% of all engineering drawings (for bridges, airplanes, refineries, etc.) use all caps. Even though we textually shout at the fabricators/contruction guys, every now and then someone installs a checkvalve backwards or forgets to grout some 10,000# machinery.

    I figure the original forced use of caps on these drawings is (was) to force the draftsmen to raise the writing instrument for each letter, so as to avoid the sloppy penmanship that usually accompanies cursive.

  6. Re:Yes by DanTilkin · · Score: 5, Interesting

    I find it humorous that in showing how to not have a caps lock key, you made a post that could have used the caps lock key.

  7. No, but Reagan is. by Sean+Clifford · · Score: 4, Interesting
    No, but Reagan is.

    I use the hell out of caps lock; it's my "prone" key in FPS shooters. Others use it for radio, etc. Aside from games though, I don't use it overmuch.

  8. Re:Swap caps lock and control by doom · · Score: 4, Interesting
    jesup wrote:
    Ah. A vi user. If you're an Emacs user, having the capslock key mapped to control is the ONLY way to fly. As others have said, that's the One True Position for the control key.
    That's the traditional position, I agree -- and I've never understood what the moron's were thinking who moved the standard control key location under the shift. But I'm an emacs user who's also using one of the kinesis contoured-model, programmable keyboards, and the Control and Alt keys are already very accessible under the thumbs (my numb-pinky-syndrome went away when I switched to the kinesis, I highly recommend them for heavy emacs abusers).

    There are a few really big flaws in the kinesis layout though, one is the damn Caps Lock next to the A, the other is a tiny chicklet Escape key way up in left field. But the Kinesis layout is easy to re-program, so I tried a few different re-arrangements and evenutally settled on making the key next to A another Escape, just like mister Vim-User recommends.

  9. Re:Swap caps lock and control by 1u3hr · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've never understood what the moron's were thinking who moved the standard control key location under the shift.

    The (conspiracy) theory I've heard is that both Gates and Jobs were trying to kill off all the old DOS wordprocessors that used control keys extensively in the late 80s, particularly WordStar. So hardly any control keys were used in early Windows apps (mostly ALTs if anything), and Gates "encouraged" keyboard manufacturers to follow his layout that made Control less convenient. After the DOS apps were well and truly dead he allowed control keys to be used more. Perosonally I have CAPSLOCK and CONTROL swapped.

    Here's an interesting article excerpt:

    Ctrl-Z/X/C/V for Undo/Cut/Copy/Paste did not exist in the x86 world until IBM moved Ctrl out of the home row and Microsoft started moving its Mac applications to Windows. Through version 2.03, the applications bundled with Windows used Del for Cut, Ins for Paste, and F2 for Copy. Alt worked as it does today, and Ctrl sat there dead as a doornail. Check out Windows: the official guide to Microsoft's operating environment copyright 1986 by Nancy Andrews (Microsoft Press, ISBN 0-914845-70-5). It wasn't enough to have a (minimally) consistent interface; just like Jobs's (minimally) consistent interface, it had to be as inconsistent as possible with any other system folks might come across.