Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

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?"

5 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.
  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 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.

  5. 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.