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Does Your PC Really Need a SysRq Button Anymore?
An anonymous reader writes "Ever wondered what the SysRq key on your keyboard does? Lenovo has decided it's so rarely used that it has started removing the key from some new Thinkpad Edge laptops. We already know that Lenovo are something of the fastidious scientists when it comes to keyboard design. Last time they fiddled with the age-old key layout, it was after painstaking research to count exactly how many times users press the Delete and Escape keys. Now it seems another relic of computer keyboards is starting to disappear."
I don't recall ever using that key although I have coded my own "terminate and stay resident" (TSR) programs back then in order to achieve some level of multitasking in DOS.
With TSR programs, you could intercept the timer interrupt and do some amount of computation in the background before returning to the running program. You could also intercept the keyboard interrupt in order to switch from one application to another on the fly but I have never actually intercepted the Sysrq key. I used some other hot key combination definition. Maybe back then I though that it wasn't a good idea to fool around with that key but this page says other TSR programmers were using it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_request
Everything I write is lies, read between the lines.
Ever wondered what the SysRq key on your keyboard does?
Introduced by IBM with the PC/AT, it was intended to be available as a special key to directly invoke low-level operating system functions with no possibility of conflicting with any existing software.
In Linux, the kernel can be configured to provide functions for system debugging and crash recovery.[4] This use is known as the "Magic SysRq key".
Microsoft has used SysRq for various OS- and application-level debuggers. In the CodeView debugger, it was sometimes used to break into the debugging during program execution.[5] For the Windows NT remote kernel debugger, it can be used to force the system into the debugger.[6]
So it's a handy debugger key for those who need one, functioning in the same key as print screen, but you need to hold alt key. What's the harm having it there, since it already is? It's not like it's an extra button on your keyboard.
On my (and I do believe most) keyboards it doubles as a Print Screen button, which I use regularly.
I'd rather you rationally disagree than irrationally agree.
Magic SysRQ key command for the *NIX world.
I'm pretty sure SysRq is a left over from the terminal days, though I don't recall which terminal (the VT100 doesn't have it). It was basically the equivalent of CTRL-ALT-DEL.
Ahh, Wiki to the rescue; it was from the IBM 3270.
Caps Lock
Num Lock
Both of these keys should die a firey death before you get rid of the SysRq key, which is very useful for Linux users.
When I learned to type we didn't have these extra "one" and "zero" keys. We used lower case "ell" and upper case "Oh" and we were happy, dang it!
On my laptop, I use it to toggle VMs. It's perfect because on my machine, it does absolutely nothing. Double scroll lock is the next best bet for me, but my keyboard requires me to press the Fn key simultaneously.
Is Lenovo leaving any "useless" keys? Some of us actually NEED keys that are otherwise never used and the OSes recognize by default.
"You can have my SysRq key when you pry it from my cold dead ThinkPad!"
I use the "busier" backwards or "reisub" combination with the sysrq key in order to gently shutdown Ubuntu when it locks up. So yes, I use it, but that has only been in the last couple of years or so. Not sure what else it is used for...
Like a city whose walls are broken down is a man who lacks self-control.
randomly I noticed that key earlier today, because some people have been given new usb keyboards instead of PS2 and they dont have that key (hp keyboards).... and now it appears here...
Weird.
- http://www.milkme.co.uk
I also notice the Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys are missing. I know you can use the Scroll Lock key in conjunction with Excel, but I'm not sure anyone else ever does. Although I have actually used it on the command line to, shock and awe, lock the screen from scrolling while it was booting up so I could see error messages before they disappeared into the dust.
Also, switching the F keys with the functionality usually relegated to Fn-F*, as mentioned in TFA, is nothing new. Apple has been doing that on their laptops for years.
If linux freezes, then Alt-SysRq-S+U+B will do an emergency sync of the disks, unmount them and reboot the system.
The only people I know who use the Caps Lock Key are AOLers. Anyone who needs a Caps Lock Key for legitimate technical reasons can buy a specialized keyboard for that purpose. That's no reason for the key to be inflicted on the rest of us.
If someone says he and his monkey have nothing to hide, they almost certainly do.
So it's a handy debugger key for those who need one, functioning in the same key as print screen, but you need to hold alt key. What's the harm having it there, since it already is?
Because they're probably remapping print screen too. Notice how "print screen" doesn't cause ink to get committed to paper in either Windows or GNOME.
That is the Print Screen key. Don't ever remove that key from the keyboard! I don't care that the word "SysRq" is written below "Print Screen" on that key. Feel free to remove that "SysRq" word from there, but do NOT remove the handy print screen key! Thanks.
...Anybody know where I can find the sysrq key on it? :)
MOD PARENT UPPITY I SAY!!
Windows Key, Esc, CTRL, Alt, Delete, Page up/down, print screen - i use these all the time.
Home/End/Scroll lock/Insert (annoying)/ Page break (only for dos type screens)/ num lock I either don't use or rarely use.
I do not support "The Man". I also do not support your irrational stupidity
You insensitive clod, I use Linux and the magic sysrq feature!
Is this company going to implement a new kernel sysctl to allow one to change the key for magicsysrq?
Anyone who needs a Caps Lock Key for legitimate technical reasons can buy a specialized keyboard for that purpose.
And install it into the laptop's chassis how?
As far as I'm concerned, the 101-key keyboard layout was handed down from on high by the FSM, and anyone who changes it should be boiled in oil.
(Yes, this includes whoever was responsible for Windows keys, which I'm still pissed about 15 years later.)
They're talking about the key sequence that's labeled "Option-F14" on Apple's desktop keyboards.
"Ever wondered what the SysRq key on your keyboard does?"
No - since I own a Mac....you insensitive bork........
I keep seeing these, and I wonder how long it will be until we have nothing but a blackberry style keyboard.
I guess I can't complain since I still use my Model M and LK463 keyboards, but laptops are getting to the point that the function keys are all remapped to random tasks (brightness, volume, etc) and we keep seeing random multi-media keys... yet stuff like num lock, scroll lock, print screen, break is getting pulled.
Maybe most suits don't spend anytime dealing with text? Powerpoint doesn't recognize break?
An operating system should be like a light switch... simple, effective, easy to use, and designed for everyone.
Reading through the discussion I looked down to remind myself where on my keyboard it was, only to find that my Logitech keyboard I've been using at work for the last 2 years doesn't even have a Syr rq key.
My work laptop does though as an alternative on the delete key.
Still, I didn't even realised it'd gone from my main keyboard!!
The people in the market segment for the Lenovo Laptops probably don't need the SysRq button (nor Print Screen). I'm fairly sure you could remove a bunch of other buttons they don't need beyond that one to. 12 function keys? the "Scroll Lock" and "Pause/Break" probably doesn't do much either - but they might already be gone.
The question is what are you going to replace them with? I don't really need a shortcut button to check my email or whatever either. Plus removing keys and moving them around really screws up the layout and has a serious negative impact on my type-speed.
But it is an invaluable use of the SysRq key.
Why doesn't the gene pool have a life guard?
When you are using any PC with Windows on it, you will use the 'Delete' key a lot 'Ctrl-Alt Delete' to get to task manager to maybe make things work again?
If this change is indicative of what'll happen to the "serious business" series (T, X, R), then the ThinkPad has, after some 18 years or so, finally jumped the shark.
One of the main selling points of a ThinkPad was the keyboard. When all the other brands went completely nuts and placed the PrtSc/ScrLk/Pause/Insert/Delete/Home/End/PgUp and PgDn keys at a whim, on a ThinkPad you could blindly hit the spot where the key was supposed to be and actually hit it. They were quite proud of that, and nobody minded.
Now, you get a chiclet keyboard with the F-keys disabled by default and six rows. Well, congrats Lenovo, you've just went from top-of-the-line in 2010 to consumer-grade-sony-vaio in 1999 or so.
Another thing were the displays. Great, high-resolution, matte 4:3 screens one could work with. I own a 12" X61 with 1050 horizontal lines. Nowadays, it's WXGA with less than 800 lines in everything up to 14.1", and half of the models come in glare-type finish. Thanks to the shiny finish you can't see the screen contents anyways, so that slightly mitigates the lack of resolution.
What's next, Lenovo? Get rid of the high-quality finish of the Notebooks and switch to cheap plastic? Fuck up the support infrastructure IBM built? Oh wait, already happened. I guess it's down to the nipple mouse as the last true hallmark of a ThinkPad. And that, I won't give up 'til you pry it from my cold, dead hands.
For those who missed the changes Lenovo has made to Esc and Del keys, this article has a nice picture.
Why are there two delete keys on an Apple Keyboard with Numeric Keypad?
Slightly related: All those Scroll Lock LED lights that nobody uses on every desktop keyboard... How much cleaner our environment would have been if all those LEDs didn't have to be produced!
The IBM PC keyboard has always had the stupidest feature of any keyboard... the GIGANTIC CAPS LOCK key. I started out on DEC and Commodore keyboard arrangements (some of the latter Commodore keyboards being influenced by DEC's, they were natural enough). And sure, over the years, I've mostly adapted to the PC layout, largely because it's difficult to find a decent keyboard with a better layout. Particularly one with a jog-shuttle built-in, but that's another story.
Sure, you can remove this or software-disable it. If there's 1% of users who find this anything but annoying, I would be surprised. The need to put something useful in its place, and move the CAPS LOCK somewhere else. Hey, maybe right next to the other rarely-if-ever-used keys: Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break.
-Dave Haynie
that the user is pressing the SysRq key.
In fact, to *urgently* tell the OS that the SysRq. It's not supposed to be buffered or anything, it supposed to grab the OS by the collar and scream "THE USER JUST PRESSED THE DAMMNED SYSRQ KEY!!!!" at it.
But what is that supposed to mean?
It doesn't mean anything.
That's the whole point.
When they were designing the keyboard, they thought of all the things that you might want a keyboard to say ("STOP SCROLLING", "Show me that last page", "Get me the hell out of this input mode"). And after they'd mandated keys for everything anybody could think of, they had a stroke of genius. They mandated a key that did nothing anybody wanted to do.
Why is that a stroke of genius?
It is something rare in engineering, which thrives on bravado and feverishly inflated self-confidence. It is an admission of the limitation of human foresight, an acknowledgement that there are more things under Heaven and Earth than are dreamt of in our philosophies; a semiotic *memento mori*.
This key is mandated to mean nothing, therefore it can mean anything, or indeed, everything.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
...since I can't find the "any" key on my keyboard anywhere!
It's been easily half a dozen years since, afflicted with an Emacs-induced sore left wrist, I switched to a Kinesis keyboard that uses thumbs, not pinkies, for chording. It has no SysRq key. I'd forgotten all about that long-lost, alluring key, and now you go and remind me!
Sorry, I forgot there are ads on the Web; I use Lynx.
I don't care about SysRq but I don't mind it sharing space with PrintScreen. And don't you dare taking my PrintScreen.
45 5F E1 04 22 CA 29 C4 93 3F 95 05 2B 79 2A B2
It really should not be necessary to point out that removing ANY key from the standard keyboard is a really strange idea. By now there will be thousands of programs here and there that use that key for something. And a keyboard without the key will not work with any of them. Is the idea that things that are not broken should not be busted without really good reasons utterly alien to the programming/engineering mind?
Assuming that "mind" is the right term.
If there is an easily discoverable way to generate the SysReq key codes on this fine new keyboard, disregard rant.
You can't see ANYTHING from a car, You've got to get out of the goddamned contraption and walk...Edward Abbey
There indeed are many residual keys on a PC keyboard. The three-button row of SysRq, ScrLk, Break could be eliminated. All locks too. I neither use the numpad or Windows keys, though some people seem to need them.
The Mac keyboard is really nice, pretty much no unnecessary buttons can be found.
But here's a cool idea: make it so that the layout ("language") of a keyboard can be auto-detected. I can't believe this hasn't been implemented yet (or has it?). It's probably possible to add some extra data in the USB signal, for example.
They would do better to remove the CAPS LOCK key, which is more bulky and - as far as I know - useful only to morons who don't know how to keep from SHOUTING on the internet. If CAPS LOCK functionality is really needed, they could just allow holding the Shift key for a period longer than t(x). The SysRq key is both the same key as "Print Screen" which is often used and useful, and is a major component of debugging for the most used operating system in the server market (Linux). (Bear in mind that the kernel that runs on those servers gets developed on laptops and desktop workstations, not servers.)
As a Linux developer this move screams to me: "HEY! WE'RE LENEVO, AND NOW THAT WE HAVE BOUGHT THE RIGHTS TO THE THINKPAD NAME FROM IBM, WE ARE SHOUTING HOW CLUELESS WE ARE BECOMING FROM THE VIRTUAL ROOFTOPS".
This is NOT their father's Thinkpad.
Guns don't kill people; Physics kills people! - John Lithgow as Dick Solomon on Third Rock From The Sun
Put a Microsoft trademark on it and it will never go away!
I honestly had to look down at the keyboard to see if there was such a key printed on mine. There is, but I certainly never noticed it before (I use print screen which is the same key, but I just press it without thinking - I don't read the text :)). Truthfully, though I once used them back in DOS, I can't say that I've used Scroll Lock or Pause/Break in about 15 years for their intended purposes either. I say "intended purposes" because until about 3 years ago the KVM I was running allowed you to tap scroll lock twice and then use your arrow keys to select the active computer, but on my new unit I just have it on the desk and use the on-unit switches to switch systems.
Truthfully though, when they start to remove keys or rearrange the layouts, it usually throws me off. Sure, if you just removed those two keys, that'd be fine, but I'm pretty used to the spacing and positioning of the traditional IBM 104-key layout. If removing some keys means changing that layout around to "save space" or something similar then I don't want it. I'm stuck in my ways I guess though. Desktop keyboards that feel like laptop keyboards seem to be all the rage now and I still spring for true mechanical switch units (there's modern ones out there if you look).
"People who think they know everything are very annoying to those of us who do."-Mark Twain
An obvious troll
If you're using something that expects an IBM 3270 client, that key is important. Now, are ThinkPads used in that role very often? Perhaps not. If they remove that functionality, they certainly wont be. I suppose a good term emulator should be able to map some other key or combo to send System Request.
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I'm looking down at my vanilla Logitech keyboard and I don't see any key with "SysRq" on it.
So I guess I don't need one.
You are welcome on my lawn.
and stole the layout exactly. Great idea, there's a reason Apple is doing so well (Usability research).
Does Your PC Really Need a SysRq Button Anymore?
SysRq, also known as the PrintScreen button. Uhmm yeah, we need it all right.
http://bash.org/?835030
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Frankly, there are a lot of keys we could get rid of, because they just take up real estate and don't help with the way I use the keyboard. I rarely have rekwirements to use the Q key, and I'm kwite sure that others could get by without it, too. These key-friendly users just need to akwire new work habits. What's hard about that?
This occurred to me last night when I was eating and typing one handed on my laptop whilst driving down the highway. (OK Not really)
An "@" key would be nice. we use it dozens of times per day and more than most of the letters on the keyboard and certainly more than all the punctuation. It's a needed key - why not put it on and get rid of the need to hold shift down to do so.
cool, can we now have ctrl+alt+backspace to restart the xserver back in x.org please?
one of the main arguments was that we could use the never-working sysrq+blahblha combination to do the same thing..
One major ilk I have about laptop keyboard is the positioning of the CTRL and Fn keys.
I was in a shop recently that sold laptops of many different brands. All of them, except Lenovo, had the CTRL key as the first key in the row, with the Fn key to the right of it. This, IMHO, is the correct position for it - it's where my little finger automatically goes for CTRL, and where it is located on a 'normal' keyboard.
Lenovo had the Fn key first, with the CTRL key to the right, meaning that when you go to hit CTRL-, I hit Fn instead. This, for me, is a major factor is choosing what laptop to buy - if the CTRL key is in the wrong place, it's marked off the list immediately.
funny story:
Several years ago, for work, I got a Compaq Evo N620c (which I still use for work). While the Fn and CTRL keys are in the wrong place, at least they have the forethought to allow you to swap them in the BIOS, which I naturally did.
Now, the laptop was to be reburned, so the Service Desk took it in. When I went to pick it up the next day, they had a normal keyboard plugged into the PS/2 socket. I asked them why, and they told me that the CTRL key was broken and they couldn't use CTRL-ALT-DEL (yes, it's Windows. *sigh*)
So firstly I explained to them that the CTRL and Fn keys were swapped in the BIOS, and then asked the question "Why didn't you just use the CTRL key on the other side of the keyboard?" (which, when tried, worked perfectly).
*sigh*
T.
The real problem? This laptop has one of those horrible chiclet keyboards.
Lenovo argues the new design gives the laptop a more "clean and inviting look"
I don't want to use any keyboard where the look of the thing was given anything more than secondary consideration. I've used chiclet-keys on Powerbooks, and I hate them. And the stupid key layout. I understand that compromises have to be made on a laptop keyboard because of space, but the Powerbook keyboard seems to have been solely designed to "think different" from the standard layout. Thou Shalt Not Move The Slash Keys. Whenever I know I have to support one now, I take my USB keyboard with me, a nice Cherry G80-3000 with a boring, normal, sensible layout, and clicky key switches.
A key that started disappearing a while ago is the stupid scroll lock button. Annoying for me, because at the workplace the scroll lock is used to trigger the switch for the KVM's. Now when I buy replacement keyboards I have to try and figure out sight unseen if they have stupid scroll lock buttons on them.
What the SysRq key needs is a corporate sponsor! Have that key bring in some cash!
Possibilities:
-Place a trademarked logo on it to raise brand awareness.
-Have it perform new special functions or modify functions for that vendors software when pressed.
-Have it open a web browser to the sponsors web site when pressed.
I can think of at least one key that has actually been added because of this kind of thing (cough *Windows* cough)
SysRQ can be extremely useful in figuring out why a machine has locked up or become unresponsive...
http://www.kernel.org/doc/Documentation/sysrq.txt
Omeganon
You can fit all the keys you really need on a laptop-size keyboard, full sized keys, too... with no Fn key. I had a very nice "compact" desktop keyboard made by Adesso that had a near-ideal layout, with no scaled down keys and no Fn keys. Unfortunately this keyboard is no longer available, and my last one broke a couple of years ago. If anyone knows a reliable source for the Adesso MCK-86 (or MCK-84), I'd love to hear about it.
I'm pretty sure you'll get a few new ones in return. Lenovo already brought us such indispensable important keys like one to turn on a reading lamp on your computer (I'm still trying to figure out what to do with it because... well, ya know, the screen comes with its own light), keys to increase and decrease the volume of your speakers (so very important if your boss suddenly comes in and you have to at least mute the sound of the game you're playing immediately, you still have the few seconds he needs to your desk to switch tasks) and so many more important keys.
I'm sure this time we get something stunning and innovative like a key to flip automatically through Powerpoint pages or something similar.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
Where I work, all SQL code must be written in all upper-case. I don't know why, but that's the rule.
So I rely on the caps lock key quite a bit. I would rather you leave that one alone.
The Windows key is actually useful in windowing environments (not just Microsoft Windows), so I'd rather keep those. Feel free to get rid of the windows menu key, the one that simulates a right-click.
Or get rid of Scroll Lock.
GLaDOS for President 2016! "Well here we are again. It's always such a pleasure." -- GLaDOS, 2011
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Agreed. My Lenovo T61, which I love dearly in every other way (especially the little keyboard light, which I'm amazed more companies don't do), drives me bonkers with the CTRL key not being lower-left. They could have put the CTRL key in the normal spot, had a smaller Fn and Win key between, then a normal ALT key to the right of those two.
But, hey, at least they got the positioning of INS-DEL HOME-END and PgUP-PgDown in a nice 6-key block on the upper right, like the Keyboard Gods intended. I'll give them credit for that.
"This post contains words, known to the State of California to cause thought. Wash brain thoroughly after reading."
SysRq-K is the Linux secure attention key (SAK), analogous to Windows' Ctrl-Alt-Del.
The reason for using a SAK before typing in your login information is that without a key sequence that only the OS can catch, any user program can spoof the OS login or unlock screen and grab your login password.
If SysRq goes away, what key(s) can Linux use as its SAK?
For the love of $deity, but the CTRL key back where it frakkin' belongs, next to the frakkin' A key!
Seriously. CTRL-key combo's are much easier to press, while touch typing, when the CTRL key is just to the left of the A key.
Cheers,
RM
Nobody's as dumb, as I appear to be
At least here that’s the case. So there really is no advantage or point to removing it.
How about we re-purpose that key to a generic KVM switch button?
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
Winkey is very useful.
I have a ton of tiny shell scripts invoked by Win + $key (via xbindkeys):
"Grey+" / "Grey -" -- volume control
G -- google current selection (see xclip (1))
W -- search Wikipedia (or Russian wikipedia with shift)
A -- open terminal
K -- invoke xkill (1)
L -- lock screen
and some more
On the other hand, the invenror of the Insert key deserves a mousetrap being put right under the light switch in their room.
WYSIWIG, but what you see might not be what you need
I'm looking down at my vanilla Logitech keyboard and I don't see any key with "SysRq" on it. So I guess I don't need one.
SysRq-K is the Linux secure attention key (SAK), like Ctrl-Alt-Del on Windows.
If you don't use it, any user on a shared or momentarily unattended computer can run a program to draw a prompt and pretend to be at the OS login or unlock screen, waiting for you to enter your password. Without a key sequence that only the OS can catch, you have no defense against such spoofing.
I love the keyboard on my 2.5 year old thinkpad. Especially the dedicated "back" and "forward" buttons, which I've remapped to more useful functions. In fact, I think the keyboard is almost a "killer feature" that none of their competitors can match. If they start removing buttons I use, I may be able to make my next laptop a system76 or clevo.
A cat can't teach a dog to bark.
I've always wondered what the SysRq was for, back when using a 286 and running DOS. Now, it has regained use for kernel hacking. So taking it away should piss off kernel hackers. Wasn't IBM employing a ton of those? Guess they won't be using thinkpads much longer then. lenovo apparently hasn't caught on that next to apple, thinkpad is one of the most used laptop brands by geeks. This I base on observations at various "hacker" events, such as the yearly c3 in Berlin.
The sad thing is that lenovo only does its research with carefully pruned "peergroups" of drooling suit wearing morons like apparently themselves. They Just Don't Listen to people with reasonable requests that aren't clearly coming from suit wearing morons. Such as there are: The escape key is heavily used by everyone using vi or emacs, ie most of the people using unix for more than the usual pr0n surfing and "office application" type resource hogs. Theirs is simply too small to use all day long. Similarly, I used to be happy with their "windows keys"-free layouts because I like the ctrl and alt keys to be nice and large, not smaller than normal keys. The serial port is very useful indeed if you are a network admin and need to configure a switch, or if you are a sysadmin and need console access to a Real Server. The parallel printer port, by contrast, is not a feature on any printer designed in the last decade. Guess what port stayed longest on the thinkpad? Their answer: "use a docking station" -- very useful advice for fixing routers and switches in the field. The alternative of using an USB serial converter is slightly less unattractive, because those things always go AWOL when you really need them and cannot easily be replaced by a few loose wires if needs must, or the drivers have hiccups or the device turns out to be plain shitty or what have you. The trackpoint I find an absolutely brilliant solution for people like me who primarily use the mouse to point, say to switch windows or select a snippet of text, then paste it, and not to do little finger dances with. Everyone else is doing touchpads, so lenovo is phasing out the trackpoint. Because trackpoints are barbie-hard and have a bit of learning curve, it seems. Same with the rise of the chicklet keyboard. I could go on, but, well...
In my view, lenovo has succeeded in taking a solid brand with a good reputation for "just working when you need it" and very good ergonomics, to a bland and overpriced also-ran, doing what every else already does and not improving anything. In short, they fail innovation forever. Dude, I might as well get a dull.
Not that many folks are using UTS/Uniscope terminal emulation packages like UTS Express or QTerm anymore, but some of us still do. At least the programs will allow functions to be remapped, but SysRQ is an intuitive key for that type of function. It's a low-level interrupt sent to the mainframe OS.
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I'm seeing a market for a USB SysRq key - just a single key with a rotatable USB connector on it.
I'm more concerned about their demotion of the function keys.. The only ones of those I don't use regularly are F9 and F10 and I really should use them more.
What's the deal with those screens? I can't see a thing! I don't understand how somebody would *like* that
typing canadian postal codes is so much easier with capslock ie: G7G H8G
A number of KVM's use this for switching computers.
All your keys are belong to me now mwah ha ha haaaaaaa!
No. I know exactly what it does and how to use it. Magic SysReq Key
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
It's much easier than using some shortcut for screen grabs, and used often enough. Scroll Lock, and the entire number pad, on the other hand, get rid of those.
time we moved on from keyboards, or at least made them specialist add-ons that only a few would want. Alternative input devices are still dismal, about as good as a rotary telephone dial with 37 finger holes. Where's the innovation ?
Nullius in verba
We already know that Lenovo are something of the fastidious scientists when it comes to keyboard design.
Do we ?
The only noteable addition Lenovo did to the great Thinkpad keyboard layout was the reinsertion of the "Windows" and "Context Menu" keys which IBM had removed to the satisfaction of a huge number of users worldwide.
It's because SQL works best when you are yelling at the database.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Our backend MRP system is on an IBM iSeries (or AS/400 as the rest of the world still knows them), and we use SysRq to swap between different terminal screens every day.
Back in the last century, when we were putting a lot of mainframe apps on the intranet at Boeing, fiddling with keyboard functions was a major problem. One app used by quite a few engineering managers would produce various reports upon pressing various function keys (F1..F12). Our initial approach was to provide links on the top of the page with the names of the reports. Not good enough. Everyone referred to them as the 'F10 report'. So we put the old key names in the URL text. Still not good enough. A few old timers couldn't be retrained to no longer punch the function keys. Other hilarity ensued*. A few geezers retired over the fuss. The moral of the story: Don't mess with tradition.
*One amusing aspect of the whole mess was that the old 'function key reports' were printed out (on 132 column tractor-feed paper) back in a central printing facility. These would then be delivered through the intra-company mail (usually the next day) to the request originator. So these guys would click on the URL (if they hadn't already quit in a huff over the loss of the actual Fn hard key), see the report window pop up and assume that this was acknowledgment of the print job being generated. In spite of the big banner that said 'Print this page for a hard copy'. They'd sit patiently, expecting the printout to be delivered in the next day's mail.
And why stop there? Lenovo has also asked itself how often users press the F Function keys. On the new laptops, the F Function buttons are reduced to secondary controls, in place of laptop controls like screen brightness. Now, you'll need to hold the Fn button to use keys like F11 (while screen brightness can be pressed without holding Fn).
Now that is a dumb decision. I use function keys all the time, and having to hold some other key for them to work would definitely be a dealbreaker. My Microsoft keyboard has an "F Lock" key which is like the Fn key but toggleable (think Caps Lock instead of Shift). That's a much better design.
CHI 3000 Key. Soon enough you wont be able to get a Thinkpad with anything except a Mandarin Keyboard.
Mod me up/Mod me down: I wont frown as I've no crown
Used it a lot on my desktop when I hacked some scanner drivers to support my parallel port scanner. It is amazing the light show that a "simple" null pointer deference in your kernel driver can make. : )
Also use it a lot to force buffers to flush to the disk and then remount the root filesystem as readonly. This was very useful to prevent disk corruption while I was debugging my ACPI suspend function on the laptop. For some reason (Microsoft ASL compiler) when the laptop was resuming from suspend state, the laptop LCD didn't turn on.
I also noticed that some laptops have SYSRQ as a function (fn key). That way one has to press:
fn+sysrq+ however, things start to be funny when these laptop also have a numeric keyboard available as second function in the {u, i, o, j, k, l, m} keys.
For example: fn+i gives key 5.
Now imagine fn+sysrq+u , one wanted a sysrq with command 'u' (remount root as ro I think), but will get a sysrq with command 5 (change log level I think). Yikes!
Consequently I will not be purchasing a Thinkpad Edge. I've had to reboot a redhat machine repeatedly with the magic sysreq keys lately. Just throwing this useful key away is a mistake. I don't understand what it benefits them anyway, since it's just some extra silkscreen on an existing button that does see use and another scan code in their hardware.
Most OSs (Linux/Windows) use this for screenshots. Myself, and most of my co-workers are certainly aware of this fact, and make use of it occasionally.
Also, I have heard that terrorists favour the 'Scroll Lock' button for self detonating, so it would make more sense to remove that key instead... but please leave the LED, since we can write nice programs to control it.
Lenovo/IBM not the only one removing keys. My new(ish) Dell E6500 has ne break key. I work mostly on Cisco equipment and often have to do password a recovery. With no break key to stop the boot secuence I have had to use windows OSK to send the break. It does however still have SysRq on F10.
Isn't SysRq the default third-level shift? Or is it the compose key? I'm certain I've used it for entering various international and mathematical characters.
So maybe while we're on the subject of keyboard keys someone could reduce the size of the CapsLock key and we could put another key in there next to the letter "A". Possibly something we coule use (maybe keep SysReq) or maybe invent a new letter or something.
Not sure about anyone else but I don't like laptop keyboards in general because I spent a lot of time having to look at the keyboard for the keys I want (eg where is the contl key? on this one). If you've ever had to support someone else's laptop you'll know what I mean. If you use the same laptop every day you get used to the layout, but when you go back and forth to a desktop it's a pain.
Maybe the laptop companies will invent a standardized space on the laptop for aftermarket keyboards. You can purchase one for your laptop that has the key layout you like in a color that defines you to your co-workers. Where are the marketing guys when you need them?
My big issue with this is that I don't understand WHY Lenovo would spend the effort, no matter how small, to research and redesign a keyboard just to remove one key. It doesn't seem like a significant cost-cutting measure, nor do I see any usability improvement, and they've already drawn the negative attention of a few million geeks. Most laptops are already a usability nightmare from the get-go, so why focus on this meaningless change ?
If anything, I'd want to see them ADD keys. Give me back the numpad, add macro keys or modifiers a-la Logitech G-series, ditch the clitmouse and add a trackball or something... Think about how a real road warrior would use the laptop and make it work FOR THOSE PEOPLE. The average home user doesn't care, and is far more likely to treat the laptop as a crap desktop, using an external monitor, keyboard and mouse.
-Billco, Fnarg.com
Obviously you never have to type acronyms. You can have my CapsLock key when you pry it from my cold, dead fingers.
... and I have to type a lot of acronyms. Hands off my CapsLock key!
I learned on an actual typewriter too, and every one I ever typed on, from old-fashioned mechanical jobs to the IBM Selectric, had a caps lock key. Trying to type out a series of caps is almost unbelievably difficult without one, whether you're on a PC keyboard or a typewriter.
And seriously, what "annoying disadvantages" are you talking about? I really don't get the CapsLock hatred. How big of a problem can it possibly be?
Hold on, had to dry my eyes after contemplating the depths of your suffering over the CapsLock key.
[citation needed]
Yes, and it carried over to keyboards to make them friendlier. The fact is that people need to be able to enter strings of capital letters from time to time, and it's extremely difficult to do so without a CapsLock key. Don't like the key? Don't use it. But lets stop with the rending of garments over the terrible harm caused by CapsLock - what's the worst that could happen? You occasionally miss the Tab key? Please.
Used it a lot on my desktop when I hacked some scanner drivers to support my parallel port scanner.
Memories, memories...
I used to have a Umax parallel port scanner (it was a gift) but I didn't even consider attempting to construct drivers for it to work with Linux. It turned out to be a vastly better use of my time (though not the environment) to chuck it in the bin and get an Epson USB device...
... the market has already spoken, as every keyboard in existence has a CapsLock key, and no one (outside of Slashdot) has so much as discussed the idea of producing one without the key.
remove the CAPS LOCK key
You seem not to have programmed in AOL language before ...
Fascinating!
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
In one of the bigger ironies seen on Slashdot today, the guy who prefaces his post with a complaint about the CapsLock key... then goes on to type an entire sentence in all caps. If you did that without the CapsLock key, you did it the hard way.
Caps lock might be good as an alternative for sticky shift for people with too few fingers but I believe it to be a legacy from the typewriter days then physical locking the shift could save some effort (depending on typewriter shift could be rather heavy if typing more than one capital letter). It is placed they too centrally no matter how I look at it.
I press Num lock all the time because it always seems to be in the wrong state.
If there is a keypad on the keyboard I expect it to be permanently ON (absolutely no exceptions). Most operating systems I have come across have a bad habit of turning it off sometimes without changing the light.
If the keypad is placed among the normal buttons I expect it to be permanently OFF (absolutely no exceptions either)
From the picture it appears that both Num Lock and the numpad keys in the middle of the normal keys are gone. I can hope that this means that the state of num lock does not matter. The keys should never have been placed among the normal keys in the first place.
I don't like that they have remapped the function keys and replaced them with brightness, volume and so on. I need to press F2 more often than I need to change the brightness. I know that they are considered a legacy from the days before the mouse... but I don't always have a mouse connected to my laptop and even on the desktop I often prefer the F-keys.
PrintScreen/SysRq, Scroll Lock & Pause/break are all very seldom used keys. However PrintScreen is used far more often than the others. I would go so far as to say it is the most legendary key on the windows keyboard.
A single key screenshot button is a great OS feature, it'll save your bacon, and capture some epic hilarity, and make support a breeze. It's not used that often statistically, but it's used when crucial.
While they are at it, do we really need 12 Function keys? I have seen a number of laptops with Fn + 1 to + as the function keys. Clever. Doesn't get in the way too much either, especially if the keyboard becomes more ergonomic overall. It makes room for them to put the printscreen back.
After logging in slashdot still does not take you back to the page you were on. It's been that way for 20 years.
... would be a solution in search of a problem. Keyboards do one thing, and do it very well - they let you put in a lot of text very quickly. There hasn't been very much innovation in this area, because the problems have already been solved.
They are already going to outlaw incandescent light bulbs soon, followed by halogens ...
Don't bring them on ideas; as long as they outlaw those nasty blue leds, lighting up the entire room just for a status signal it's all fine for me.
--- I am known for the ones who want to find me on the net. Is that a privacy risk or a privilege? One might wonder..
on laptops.
...and the hottest PC in town was the IBM AT...
the SysRq key was used to change to the special ISA card which contained a 5250 terminal, the 5250 card then took full control over the system.
The SysRq key is probably more useful than the WinKeys are.
While hooked up to a time share in the mid 70's, I wanted to know what the key did. I kept pounding it. After a few minutes, my display responded with ****STOP RINGING THAT DAMN BELL*****. Seems a large clanging bell in the server room, miles away, was hooked up so the System Admin could respond to requests from the user.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
Not!
So, it's ok to add stupid media buttons, but they want to remove that one?
They should just change the name and put some fun windings thing and then teach users that they can create custom shortcuts with keys they don't use regularly.
DAMN, 630 comments and counting, some very passionate on a sysrq key. Seriously? Skrew Haiti, economy, jobs, and the hot chick from accounting, did you hear what the M.F.'s are doing to keyboards?
Does that mean that those pesky windows keys will vanish?
FTA: "And why stop there? Lenovo has also asked itself how often users press the F Function keys. On the new laptops, the F Function buttons are reduced to secondary controls"
Cool! I can't wait until they evaluate the usage on the rest of the keys in order to put the most used key combinations closer together ;)
The SysReq key goes back to the IBM System/360 mainframe. It didn't have a CRT as the operator console, it had a modified IBM selectric typewriter-type (with the patented ball type element) as the operator console. It was a model 1052.
Because of the slow print speed (less than 15 characters per second), the mainframe OS could spew out a lot of messages (some cryptic in nature to someone not familiar with the system) on paper. In order to prevent confusion, the keyboard was locked by default and you had to press the SysReq key on the keyboard and wait for the system to unlock the keyboard (and that might take a bit) to allow the operator to enter commands.
I actually saw one in use at a PPOE, on an IBM System 360/50. You just had to live with it.
The next generation IBM System 370 systems initially came with the same type of console, but they later introduced the much faster 3215 console keyboard/printer, which I think used a dot-matrix type print element. Still had to use the SysReq key to be allowed to enter commands.
"fastidious scientists"
Really? I wish they would invest some of that fastidiousness in choosing better disk drives. The drive on my ThinkPad T500 crapped out after a mere six months. This after I paid for what I thought was top-of-the-line hardware.
I was backed up, but it took me several days to reload all the software and get running again. Very unpleasant experience.
Now I can't get Acronis True Image to mirror my whole drive. The last time I tried, my system seized up, I had to lean on the power button for ten seconds to shut it down, and when I rebooted I got a nice message saying "Your system may not restart". Wonderful.
Oh - and the fingerprint scanner stops working after three months. The twerp in tech support casually suggested I would have to "reflash my BIOS". Really? I see you don't user your PC to earn a living.
I never had such grief with generic black boxes.
Slashdot entertains. Windows pays the mortgage.
really - what good programmer would make a hard-coded dependency on the existence of an obscure key like sysRq..? if you say the choice of an obscure key is so that it doesn't conflict with other existing applications use of key assignments - then the only sane way is that the user should be able to pick & reassign function-key invocations in a preferences file.
software that depends on a hard-wired sysRq key without being able to reassign it in a preferences file should be sumarily deleted and its sourcode burned in the digital bucket destined only to be run in machine-emulators (in which case - the sysRq will be reassigned anyway).
Heh, I paid about £30 for an AT keyboard a couple of decades ago. I transferred it to the 486 that replaced the original 286 machine, then pentiums etc with the help of a 5-pin-din-to-ps/2 adaptor. I am still using it and, because it has no windows key, I have never got used to a windows key or any of those other odd keys that lurk around the spacebar. With luck they will all go away again before i need to find out what they do.
They whose government reduces their essential liberties for temporary security, receive neither liberty nor security.
While they're at it, they should also get rid of these. God, I hate them so. Never used them once, and they both force me to redo what I've already done. Just terrible. Mac keyboards don't have this cruft, I'm not sure why Lenovo catching up is newsworthy.
This is because on typewriters (yes, I know most of you haven't ever seen one), they frequently didn't have a zero or one key. You had to use lowercase "l" for one and capital "O" for zero.
As for old laws that were typed on a typewriter, getting them changed requires legislation, which is very expensive and time consuming, unless they can pass some sort of "meta-legislation" that changes all lowercase "l" to one throughout the law where appropriate.
I don't even know what SysRq is for, but it shares that key with Print Screen, which I've used numerous times. So SysRq... meh... but here's hoping Print Screen doesn't go away anytime soon.
Had a box lock up on me while messing with display settings. Alt+ctrl+del didnt do anything, so SysRq to the rescue! Thanks /.
You cannot warp because you are warp scrambled.
Thanks to complaints to Xorg. the tried and true ctrl->Alt->bksp to do a hard restart of the X windowing system (like when you just did an update and need to restart X to get the new binaries in play). Has been replaced with left-alt->SysReq->k. Folks it's either leave our keys alone of do it the Ubuntu way and reboot every time something happens. Oh and why did it get replaced. Seems that WinUsers use ctrl->Alt->bksp to go back one word in one of the office apps..... sheeesh. One more reason to drop Lenovo (other than their poor performance and quality of fit and finish of late. (20 laptops in.... 15 laptops back to repair, in the first 24 hours. Not good, finally RMA's the lot.)
I'm sorry, I'm to tired to be witty at the moment so this message will have to do.
What about the ever-growing Linux segment? Magic System Request has saved my ass countless times now. System Request is the key you hope you never need but are glad it's there when you do.
Furries make the internet go.
In my house there's this light switch that doesn't do anything. Every so often I would flick it on and off just to check. Yesterday, I got a call from a woman in Germany. She said, "Cut it out."
Steven Wright
Oh yes its definitely needed there are millions of PC's attached to a mainframe that need this key.
Lenova has taken it upon themselves to delete other keys that a lot of people use. That is one of the big reasons why I would never buy a lenovo computer (that plus it is made in China and you just do not now what spyware/bugs/malware in your computer. That's worse than trusting MS to be honest.
> painstaking research to count exactly how many times users press the Delete and Escape keys
reseach that obviously didn't include any vi(m) users
...will they remove it from the Dvorak version?
MOD PARENT UP. Caps-lock is much less important than CTRL.
I am not really here right now.
Not news. litl.com got rid of all of 'em.
Get a KeySonic ACK-616RF -- you will _love_ it.
You obviously never tried ksnapshot -- best screen grabber ever :)
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