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Changing the Keyboard
Your Mama sent us a funny NY Times bit (yes, you need a free account) about dumbing down keyboards because all those crazy keys confuse the newbies. BUt this begs the question: How can we survive without old friends like the Scroll Lock, the Sys Rq and of course, break?
I've made several posts on this topic as well.
---
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Personally, I think they keyboard is pretty much OK as it is. Dvorak is definitely a more efficient layout of the alphabet keys, but most people are used to QWERTY, so it's probably here to stay.
One thing that would be a very easy thing to do would be to move the caps lock, scroll lock, and num lock keys out of the main layout, and put them where the lights are (and have lights built into the keys).
That way, the num lock could be replaced with a backspace key for the num keypad (which would be much more efficient- I think "clear" on the Mac is exactly that), caps would be replaced with something useful (maybe something related to tab, like moving the cursor one tab forward, or a reverse-tab), and the 3 key block of print screen/sysrq, scroll lock, and pause/break could be replaced with cut/copy/paste keys or something like that. (Print screen, sysrq, pause, and break could be retained by going ctrl-f9/f10/f11/f12.
There already is a help key, after all- F1. But if that was actually LABELLED "Help" in addition to F1, it would probably make it easier for newbies.
The ultimate keyboard would allow it to be instantly reconfigurable, of course: I wonder if it's possible to put little LCDs on the top of the keys so that the labels can change instantly, through software.....
These keyboards do have some eccentricities, but I really grew to like the positioning of the esc key. Really great for emacs. Hard to get used to a PC keyboard after using one for a while...
The IBM Model M keyboard (P/N 1391401) is perhaps the finest, best-made typing device in production. Its sturdy construction, positive-response key action, and ease of maintenance are legendary.
Hot swapping keyboards is in general a bad idea.
The keyboard interface is a syncronous serial interface, and not necessarily well-buffered. Hot plugging a keyboard is a good way to toast out a motherboard's keyboard interface.
It was ages ago, but I remember buying 8088 motherboards back in 'the old days' at swapmeets. A common 'defect' on them (component level troubleshooting is such fun) was the TTL gates with lines connected directly to the keyboard being blown. These days that logic is all buried in a monster "Chipset" part. If you blow the keyboard interface on such a board, plan on telnetting to that box in the future, you won't be typing at it anymore.
Ditch that crappy QWERTY board, and get a Dvorak one!
I swear by my Kinesis Ergo. The Dvorak is only half of the benifit, the best part is the REAL ergo layout.
Ever wonder why keyboards are layed out with the keys going diagonal?? Beats me, but it's much more comfy to type on on that is in columns.
Best money I ever spent.
I undertstand it was (don't laugh) a security measure... You see, a virus or an external attacker can make your computer think it has some extra keypunches in the buffer, and thus gain access to log into the system maliciously. Now, they can't (can they?) send Ctrl-Alt-Del
Now, maybe it was a valid security reason during the first two months of the first NT's release... But not anymore, IMHO.
OBVIOUSLY, the solution is to make a keyboard with one and only one button.
It would sit right smack in the middle of the keyboard. The only label on it would be a little smiley face. (You could put some LSD on it if so inclined).
Then, you think about what you want the button to do REALLY HARD as you press it down. The keyboard would then interpret your thought and send the appropriate message to the computer.
Of course, you'd have to put new typing programs on the market to teach you where on the Home Key to place your fingers.
Some would say that as long as the keyboard is reading your thoughts, why not just eliminate the keyboard altogether and just communicate your thoughts telepathically to the computer? Obviously, that's just hogwash. How are you supposed to convey your thoughts without pressing down on the button??
Anyway, I have a limited number of these special keyboards made, so contact me if you want one. The price is $100 per unit, non-negotiable.
DISCLAIMER: The keyboards only work as long as your only thoughts are, "Do nothing. Do nothing."
-
I think keyboards for newbies only need one key, labled "Slam forehead here until you learn to read manuals".
"Old man yells at systemd"
Yes! Hail the IBM Model M! =^) These have to be the greatest keyboards ever made. Comfortable, full sized keys. Practically indestructible. I grabbed the one I'm currently using from a thrift store for $1 -- I think I burned all my good karma right there, and I've been paying for it ever since. *heh*
--
Caps -> Control is extremely important to me. The only problem is that I accidentally turn caps on all the time on others' computers.
I did it after getting some old workstation hardware--it was just too inconsistent to keep moving that one key in my mind. Now, I'll never go back.
-awc
That would be assuming it's OFF to begin with, which everyone knows is WRONG! :)
Don't forget binding the 'menu' key to Compose; without a Compose key, it's difficult to enter umlauts (äëöü), æ (whatever that's called), thorns (), and other non-English symbols.
I have a calculator with a 'green-diamond' key, but I find myself calling it 'Meta' because it looks like the Sun meta-key symbol.
Many terminal programs (and some Linux programs too, although only when run in console mode, I think) treat it as the old XON/XOFF (better known as Ctrl-S/Ctrl-Q) combination - When you send XON, it means "hold a second, I'm a bit full - don't send any more data". Then, when you are ready to continue, you just give it a XOFF, and there you go.
(or was it the other way around?
When you are entering data into a spread sheet you can hit num lock and use the arrows to move around to the cell you want, hit num lock and continue entering data.. no moving your hand 2 inches to those peski arrow/control keys.. I always wished they put the alt key over there.. I find myself only ever using my left hand for ALT and entering ascii codes in decimal.. and they need to put a backspace key over there.. damn it.. get rid of all the other keys and just fork me a keypad. (with a hex row..)
How we know is more important than what we know.
My understanding of "begging the question" has always been when a statement gives rise to an obvious (but unstated) question. A five-year gap on your résumé can be said to "beg the question" ... so much so that you can state just that and everyone knows what the question is. This is the only usage I'm familar with, and it makes a lot of sense to me, whereas "conclusion stated in your premises" seems more of a semantic stretch.
-- Only unbalanced people can tip the scales.
I don't know about any other application but in MS Excel Scroll Lock locks in the current selection. Without Scroll Lock, arrow keys and Page Up/Down cause the selected area to change in the direction of the navigation. With Scroll Lock on the view changes, but the currently selected cells stay selected.
Mirrored numpads on both sides of the keyboard would be GREAT for games! It would be good for righties who want the mouse and numpad and the main keyboard (e.g. me) in games like Quake, and it would give you a pair of gamepad-esque controllers for games that you're not using the mouse for.
I hate 'em! I hit 'em by mistake when typing in a window and then the menu pops up an' ... Aww never mind.
**>>BELCH
I have a Sun layout keyboard on my work and home PC's. For those that haven't used one of those before, they have an extra 11 function keys down the left hand side (with labels like "Front", "Cut", "Help", etc - VERY useful to bind to functions like "bring window to front" etc), and four extra keys in the top right hand corner. Add to that a real Meta key, compose and Alt Graph, and that's a real hacker's keyboard.
The Sun brand keyboards have a different connector than PC's, which gives you two options; either build a converter, or buy an NCD Sun Layout keyboard (X-terminals have standard PS/2 connectors). Part number for that is "N-123 Unix" (or choose an international version).
If you go with the NCD keyboard, they don't support the clunky protocol that most keyboards use and use the pure PS/2 protocol - so you will have to do some heavy key remapping.
Under Linux 2.0 and current versions of XFree86 you can get all keys except F9 and F10 working. Mail me (see home page for address) to get a copy of keymaps for this.
The Linux Input Driver patch to 2.3.12 will make all the keys available, but is not currently at a production stability level.
the WIN key is more than just ctrl+esc. there are several keyboard shortcuts: win+pause/break = system properties / win+e = explorer / win+f = find / win+r = run dialog box / win+(shift)+m = (undo) minimize all / win+c = control panel. i'm sure there are a few others, but those are ones that i use. yeah, use win98 yet read /. so flame away.
Would someone please volunteer to be the saviour of online humanity and kill the Caps Lock key?
It has one useful function, and one only: to instantly mark newbies. While this is nice, there are equally effective ways of spotting newbies that don't leave you pressing your hands to your ears and moaning about Advil.
This godforsaken waste of plastic is positioned right between Shift, A, and tab - as though it were placed next to some of the most common keys on the keyboard specifically to encourage typists to strike it accidentally.
WebTV lost an opportunity to atone for the fact of their existence by including a Caps Lock key on their keyboard. Just think how many newbies could have been saved from ETERNAL LUSERDOM if WebTV's engineers had taken a little thought to the monster they were unleashing on the world and simply omitted it. Then again, if they had been thinking along those lines, they would have blown all their cash on a big party and then quit, which would have pissed off their investors to no end.
OK, enough ranting. I hate Caps Lock.
-Mars
one has to wonder.. it's nice like they don't have the money to buy some more ram.
How we know is more important than what we know.
Back in the DOS-based days of WordStar, the Scroll Lock key did something. You could put the cursor on a line, and hit scroll lock. Now when you hit the arrow keys the screen would scroll, but the cursor would stay on the same line. In other words, it "locked" the cursor in place while scrolling. - AC
In my mind, the IBM PS/2 keyboard is the finest keyboard ever made. You can pick them up around here (Boston) refurbished at trade shows for about $15. They have a perfect feel, and, in my mind, the keys are all in the right places.
I like two control keys. I'm a touch-typist. Most of the useful control chars for emacs and the shell are on the left side of the keyboard (a,s,x,c,d,z,w), requiring a control key on the right side of the keyboard. I can take or leave the caps lock key, but a control key to the left of the 'a' is purest evil for finger injuries.
I spent the first year after coming out here as a contract sysadmin. I spent that year using Sun type-5 keyboards. They seem to be designed specifically to cause wrist injury. They have a horrid feel, a horrid slope, and are way too wide. I always end up remapping one of the diamond keys to be a right control.
nothing. It was adding to the keyboard layout when IBM came out with the AT. The original PC and the XT didn't have a SysRQ key. In linux you have the "magic sysrq key", and it can do stuff for you.
The only keys you need are :
ctrl + alt + del
Blah.. take away the keypad and put a number pad on the mouse..
How we know is more important than what we know.
Once again, there is no solid evidence to support this false assertion. Newbies are not confused by extra keys on the keyboard. I'm all for streamlining and getting rid of that stupid num-pad, not for this crap.
COBOL has been case insensitive for the last 10 years.. They still have that '*' must go in the first column for the line to be considered a comment though.
How we know is more important than what we know.
How else would I switch between my 4 machines using my omnicube KVM? scroll lock scroll lock 1-4 oh yes...first post? :P
Personally I have an old IBM terminal with a REALLY nice keyboard. It has 24 function keys! Personally I want 36 or so...
I also would like a few dozen more keys all around the keyboard, like another 12 or so on the left and another 12 or so on the right.
256-key keyboards anybody? (hey I wonder if this idea is MARKETABLE??? HRM....)
And why is it that in Xwindows under Linux, if you turn NumLock on (as it always should be) that when you use the mouse, half the buttons on any given app don't work? Apparently NumLock is regarded as a "Shift" key -- even though CapsLock isn't. Or is there some way to change this foolish behavior?
i use caps lock when programming in assembler.
Hmm, i think that newbies are nowdays more stupid than old days...
I was helping my new bride move out of her apartment and what did I find in the back of a closet? Why, an old IBM!
She said, "Oh, yeah. That thing is ancient. We can probably just throw it all out."
I said, "No way. I'm keeping this keyboard."
Yep. Count 'em -- 101 long-throw keys with easy action and SPRINGS (Can I get a hallelujah!) A case that was made of METAL, man! You could put it on your lab -- provided you didn't need circulation to your knees (it's a little heavy compared to today's stuff). A genuine coiled cable from an era when coiled cables did NOT tangle into a 3" knot of cheap plastic misery within a week.
And the NOISE! I haven't heard that kind of audible feedback from a keyboard in years! Everything now is don't-wake-up-the-guy-in-the-next-cubicle softie soft. (ok, Dell is the exception) Not only did it "click", it would "boing" oh-so-softly with each keystroke!
It went straight on to my #1 box and the cool factor of the machine went up immediately. Trust me -- you could feel it. The only drawback is that when I'm in the office, people can tell whether I'm working (CLACKETY CLACK CLACK) or just goofing in Netscape.
Save the whales. Feed the hungry. Free the mallocs.
I see no reason to buy a vastly overpriced (the cables are expensive because they're hand-made? Give me a break!) keyboard that seems to have been designed with the soul purpose of causing horrible wrist injuries.
I mean, really. Ergonomics exists for a reason. The only redeeming feature of this keyboard is that it doesn't have those damnable windows keys.
This is a question that has been plaguing me for years. Does any body know?
my other penis is a vagina
Can anyone tell me whether printscreen, Sys Rq, Scroll Lock, Pause and Break actually do anything under Linux? I've never found a need to use them...
:-)
OTOH, I have configured my win95 keys to act as meta under X. All I need to do is paint on penguins
You had bellies? Why, in my day we had to transmute the shape of our outer cell walls!!
Gosh dern it, back in _my_ day we didn't need 104 keys! Or even 88 keys! We had 24 keys and we liked gosh darn it! We didn't need none of those newfangled letters like 'J' or 'V'. We didn't need no gosh-darned punk-tyuu-eh-shun. We just rammed those keys like there was no tomorrow over our accoustic couplers hooked up to our shortwave radio keys and we LIKED it gosh darn it!
Course I guess there's no pleasing these kids these days with their fancy 'automobiles' and their 'cordless phones' and their 'Internet', so I guess us proper, decent, Ghod-fearing old folk will just have to suffer along with all the clackity-clack of all those keys going at once and them mice oh don't even get me started about those darn mice! You'd have never seen a mouse in MY computer lab, gosh darn it! Those critters fried up real good inside ENIAC, heh-heh-heh...*cough*
Gosh darn it now you've gone and got my emphysima goin' again, you young rascals. Go on, git out of here, you punks, with your 104 keys and your mice and your 'monitors', what kind of garbage is that, kids these days, I'll tell you, can't even read a punched card, or use a keypunch....
-- I'm sure this is amusing to someone.
$1??? wow, I feel ripped off now! I paid $2 for each of my 3 Model M's!!! :) ] As someone mentioned earlier, I hope that by the time PS/2 connecters are no longer put on PC's, there will be an adapter for plugging these baby's into USB...
But, it was well worth it! I hate when I have to type on anything else. Just switching to a different type of keyboard [even when the keys are in the same place] slows my typing down by about 40% [estimated
Ender
Eat right. Stay fit. Die anyway.
Nothing to see here
How about putting MORE keys on every-day keyboards.. just like my sun keyboard at work
..umm .. is that the ANY KEY ?? These extended keys on the Sun keyboards make my live much easier for sure!
Find, Cut, Copy, Paste, Open (my favourite), Front, Undo, Props, Stop, Again..
But I could never figure out the blank key on the sun keyboards ?? ^@ is what it produces
I think having a power button (or even a suspend button, like on Compaqs) would be really annoying. I would hate to accidently power off or suspend while I was doing some hardcore coding in Linux, switching VC's and hitting seemly random keys all over the keyboard? I know no matter where you placed it, I would end up hitting it somehow. I'd either hit it with my head when I pass out after a 18 hour coding session, or with my elbow or I'd drop a pen on it or something... and if you made it so you had to press it very hard, so you couldn't accidently hit it, nobody would want to use it... and what would happen if you pulled out your keyboard plug? (Since I know so many of us like hot swapping keyboards around) Would the computer shut off? Could you not turn it off? Would Windows lock up? Heh. I like keyboards the way they are.
The idea is that, with Scroll Lock on, when you use the cursor movement keys (up, down, etc) instead of moving the cursor, you scroll the window.
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Of course, as a side-effect you turn off the normal association of M-up and M-down: Scrolling the "other window". Personally, I use that more often than the need to scroll the current window one line at a time.
The num pad is not upside down, the phone is. Calculators were in wide use for some time before the introduction of touch phones, and calculator keypads have the same orientation as the numeric keypad.
This sig under construction. Please check back later.
Out-of-Box, Suns don't make nearly as nice workstations as SGIs do (I've used both). But, with a little tweaking, they can make a wonderful home. I'm on a SPARCplug (okay, it's not a Sun, but it's based on Sun's technology and runs their software and pretends it's an SS20) running Solaris 7, KDE, and Netscape/IE (depending on my mood). I really couldn't be much happier.
Ultras suck as workstations when they only have the standard TGX framebuffer (stick an old Paradise ISA VGA card in a PentiumII and see if it's really that much more responsive in Windows than a P60 is... you catch my drift). TGXs tend to bug-out on their onboard RAM (mine went out a month ago, so now I'm at half RAM, which means -less- acceleration), which produces very `interesting' video effects (mouse droppings, incomplete redraws, region-swapping, etc.).
However, throw a Creator3D or Elite3D in the Ultra, and you're moving like nobody's business. Suns really shine when you run them headless and X into them or run remote processes on them, as their I/O is superb and their CPUs run phenomenally once you free them from the tethers of a video framebuffer.
The keyboards are weird, especially if it's the Unix layout (and you're a PC-user), but, once you acclimate to them (Sun makes a PC101-like keyboard, BTW), they're a dream in Solaris. I'd love to have copy/paste/help/undo/redo/repeat/open/cut/properti es keys on a WinNT box... it saves from having to remember shortcut keys. But, the keyboards are an acquired taste
As for SGIs, they do make much more impressive workstations. They've got glamourous cases, the spiffiest GUI on the planet, a standard PC keyboard, and a graphics subsystem that works with the CPU (actually uses the same instruction set), instead of adding more work to the CPU. Excellent, excellent workstations.
But, run IRIX machines aren't nearly as impressive remotely or as servers. Challenges and the like were pretty darn good, but, you get more bang-for-buck on Suns if you're doing mostly serving or headless processing.
People buy Suns for CPU speed and Solaris, not for a spiffy GUI or `creature comforts' (well, most don't... I actually enjoy working in the Solaris environment). People buy SGIs because they need the power and flexibility of a Unix workstation, but also want a machine that makes computing an far more enjoyable experience (in terms of `creature comforts').
Oh.. don't talk about stuffing PC innards into an SGI case too loudly around avid SGI users (I'm one of those, too). They just might burn you at the stake for heresy. ;)
"Have lunch, or be lunch."
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
Uhm.. I think you meant to post to segfault.org, not slashdot.org. The lack of Natalie Portman's genitals and Hank the Angry, Drunken Dwarf should have been a clue. Jeeez....
"Have lunch, or be lunch."
Pining for the days when The Glorious MEEPT!!! graced SlapDash with his wisdom.
ADOM IS MY LIFE ADOM ADOM ADOM thomas biskup is a god. ADOM
the mouse is to inacurite, and yet you use it for sniping? that dosn't make to much sense. anyway, I find the mouse much better, beacuse it alows analog control of position, instaid of ether left/right up/down you get fine graned control
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Reasons I prefer my HHKB over a remapped
standard PC keyboard:
1.) ESC key moved down next to '1' (remap this
on a PC keyboard, where do you put '~/`'?).
2.) ALT keys moved outwards so comfortable to
use with fourth fingers (no keys there to map
to on PC keyboard).
3.) Backspace reachable from home row (although
I always use CTRL-H).
4.) Nice, solid keyboard, very pleasant to type
with.
5.) Takes up half the space of a standard
keyboard.
I bought the 'classic' version, with the Mac and
Sun interfaces. They've got a new, PC-only
version out for about $70 (from memory).
Definitely recommended (http://www.pfuca.com)
Some computers boot with NumLock on, some with it off. This is usually selectable in the BIOS...
What I found funny, when I looked at a friends Sun box, was that the power key was on the keyboard! Press it *beeeoooop* down goes the system. This always seemed a little silly to me.
Soon enviromentalists and techies across the continent unite, to save the numpad from extinction. Free willy!
but a control key to the left of the 'a' is purest evil for finger injuries.
How do you come to this conclusion? I can't see how just moving your finger to the side AND down is better than just a side motion. I speak from personal experience here but it's not a very large data set.
Oh well.
That's it. Ctrl + Esc is the Windoze shortcut that pop up the Start menu. And it's quite useful : it permit to shutdown the machine in less than 1/10 sec. (Win95 + Up arrow + Enter; much quicker than "shutdown -h now").
I do agree about the power button on the keyboard. I missed this feature from my SS10 when working on peecees (and I curse the placement of CapsLock/Ctrl !). With almost every PC now sold being equiped with software-controllable power supply (ATX?), it sould be doable. Probably another limitation in the name of backward compatibility !
:wq
I can honestly say that I use just about every key on my keyboard. I never type Ctrl-C; I was trained to use Ctrl-Break. Print Screen is handy when I'm writing help files for Windows apps my company puts out.. just run the app. Go through the procedure, take a screenshot at every step. Viola, help that even morons can understand. (The only thing I don't like much about that feature is the fact that it doesn't capture the mouse pointer. I have to paste it in =P). As for my function keys, I use WordPerfect 5.1 on my old DOS machine or under DOSEMU whenever I want to get words processed. I've even got the little template that goes around the function keys so that if I forget a combo, I can always look it up.
I love that keyboard! I'm gonna git me one some day...
-- 100% MS-Free as of 4-4-1999, 11:47:38 PST. "The lapdance is always better when the stripper is cryin'" Free Kevin,
Ok, I've been using Linux for over two years now without coming across this before - it would have been damn useful those times when SVGAlib stole my keyboard and I didn't have a network to telnet in from.
/. has comment truncating working nicely now, and it's all worth it.
~ ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
~ ~~~~~~~~~~
Sorry for the long comment, but
/usr/src/linux/Documentation/sysrq.txt:
MAGIC SYSRQ KEY DOCUMENTATION v1.2
------------------------------------
[Sat May 16 01:09:21 EDT 1998]
* What is the magic SysRQ key?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
It is a 'magical' key combo you can hit which kernel will respond to
regardless of whatever else it is doing, unless it is completely locked up.
* How do I enable the magic SysRQ key?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You need to say yes to 'Magic SysRq key (CONFIG_MAGIC_SYSRQ)' when
configuring the kernel. This option is only available it 2.1.x or later
kernels.
* How do I use the magic SysRQ key?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
On x86 - You press the key combo 'ALT-SysRQ-'. Note - Some
(older?) may not have a key labeled 'SysRQ'. The 'SysRQ' key is
also known as the 'Print Screen' key.
On SPARC - You press 'ALT-STOP-', I believe.
On other - If you know of the key combos for other architectures, please
let me know so I can add them to this section.
* What are the 'command' keys?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
'r' - Turns off keyboard raw mode and sets it to XLATE.
'k' - Kills all programs on the current virtual console.
'b' - Will immediately reboot the system without syncing or unmounting
your disks.
'o' - Will shut your system off via APM (if configured and supported).
's' - Will attempt to sync all mounted filesystems.
'u' - Will attempt to remount all mounted filesystems read-only.
'p' - Will dump the current registers and flags to your console.
't' - Will dump a list of current tasks and their information to your
console.
'm' - Will dump current memory info to your console.
'0'-'9' - Sets the console log level, controlling which kernel messages
will be printed to your console. ('0', for example would make
it so that only emergency messages like PANICs or OOPSes would
make it to your console.)
'e' - Send a SIGTERM to all processes, except for init.
'i' - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, except for init.
'l' - Send a SIGKILL to all processes, INCLUDING init. (Your system
will be non-functional after this.)
* Okay, so what can I use them for?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Well, un'R'aw is very handy when your X server or a svgalib program crashes.
sa'K' (system attention key) is useful when you want to exit a program
that will not let you switch consoles. (For example, X or a svgalib program.)
re'B'oot is good when you're unable to shut down. But you should also 'S'ync
and 'U'mount first.
'S'ync is great when your system is locked up, it allows you to sync your
disks and will certainly lessen the chance of data loss and fscking. Note
that the sync hasn't taken place until you see the "OK" and "Done" appear
on the screen. (If the kernel is really in strife, you may not ever get the
OK or Done message...)
'U'mount is basically useful in the same ways as 'S'ync. I generally 'S'ync,
'U'mount, then re'B'oot when my system locks. It's saved me many a fsck.
Again, the unmount (remount read-only) hasn't taken place until you see the
"OK" and "Done" message appear on the screen.
The loglevel'0'-'9' is useful when your console is being flooded with
kernel messages you do not want to see. Setting '0' will prevent all but
the most urgent kernel messages from reaching your console. (They will
still be logged if syslogd/klogd are alive, though.)
t'E'rm and k'I'll are useful if you have some sort of runaway process you
are unable to kill any other way, especially if it's spawning other
processes.
* Sometimes SysRQ seems to get 'stuck' after using it, what can I do?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
That happens to me, also. I've found that tapping shift, alt, and control
on both sides of the keyboard, and hitting an invalid sysrq sequence again
will fix the problem. (ie, something like alt-sysrq-z). Switching to another
virtual console (ALT+Fn) and then back again should also help.
* I hit SysRQ, but nothing seems to happen, what's wrong?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
There are some keyboards which do not support 'SysRQ', you can try running
'showkey -s' and pressing SysRQ or alt-SysRQ to see if it generates any
0x54 codes. If it doesn't, you may define the magic sysrq sequence to a
different key. Find the keycode with showkey, and change the define of
'#define SYSRQ_KEY 0x54' in [/usr/src/linux/]include/asm/keyboard.h to
the keycode of the key you wish to use, then recompile. Oh, and by the way,
you exit 'showkey' by not typing anything for ten seconds.
* I have more questions, who can I ask?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You may feel free to send email to myrdraal@deathsdoor.com, and I will
respond as soon as possible. If that email address does not work, use
myrdraal@jackalz.dyn.ml.org.
-Myrdraal
also, the windows key isn't a 'normal' key, it fires an intrupt, or does somthing else like that (I think).
You're wrong here. The windows key is just like any other key. If you've ever programmed your own keyboard handler to sit on IRQ 1 and poll port 0x60, you'll know what I'm talking about. It's been a while since I did it myself, but IIRC, the windows keys use what would logically be the scan codes for F13, F14 and F15.
-- close but no sig
Not exactly relevant to what you posted but . . .
The Keyboard that came with this HP Vectra VL just FSCKING SUCKS!!! Some marketroid thought it would be 313373ly k3wl to add 13 keys to adjust stuff like the speaker/earphones volume & other stuff that makes no sense to me. Thirteen miserable dirty little eraser stubs above & to the right of the 10-key pads that are already mapped -- or should be mapped -- to other keys. And they sit there untouched, cluttering the appearance of my keyboard.
And then there are those mothra-fscking Winkeys that I only hit when I make a typo. They're about as cute as a 2nd-grader playing three-card Monty on the playground & racking in the lunch money from the first-graders.
Are the PHBs at certain corporations trying so hard to make using computers easy for the average luser that they HAVE to annoy & handicap those of us who know how to use one? Maybe they get flaccid at the thought some of us are better with computers than they are, & do this out of some twisted sense of revenge for their lack of marital (or pre-marital) ability???
Okay, I know this rant's going to get moderated to -1, but I had to get all of that off my chest. Before I took this dead 540MB full-height SCSI drive I have at home & stress-tested the craniums of a few PHBs at certain corporations.
Geoff
I think I see a trend here. Maybe for them it really would be easier to muzzle the entire internet than to produce p
For several thousand bucks you'd think 'ya would get a half decent keyboard, not the 'ironing board sized', mushy, crappy one they send with sparc 5s and 10s...
Well back in the days when the earth was cooling off and dinasours were being domesticated for house hold pets there existed computers that had many terminals, a terminal being a monitor and keyboard with out a cpu of it's own. Since computers were soo expensive it was common for one computer, usually no faster than your common 286, to have a dozen or so terminal connections to one "true computer", one with a cpu. However the problem was how do your reset a terminal if it hangs, or how do you get the system to recognize your attempt to login? It would be wastefull for the "true computer" to keep a connection going to a terminal that no one was using. Well that's where the SysRq came in, think of it as a on/off switch.
As systems grew and computers became cheap, about this point dinasours died of lung cancer long story don't want to get into it at this time, the key was carried along since computers could be wired into such a system through a serial connection. I've even seen such a serial connection, the horror!
You might also be interested to know that the SysRq key requires you to press the right alt key as well, shift doesn't work. I don't remember what the scan code from the keyboard is but it's a unique scan code.
In reality all the keys on the keyboard do nothing but send back a number, ctl-alt-del is not some magical configuration that trips the reset switch. It's up to your software to recognize that combination and do what ever is appropriate. If your vagly interested the codes sent back start with 1 from your esc key and go from left to right across the keyboard starting with your 1 key above the q, with a few notable exceptions like pause which sends several codes, as well as num lock and the keypad.
As for not being able to detect several key presses, this is true to some degree. While you can't sent to codes at once, codes are sent as make/break codes, if the code is less than 128 it's a make code if it's more than 128 subtract 128 from it and it coresponds to it's break code, meaning it's been released. So a smart programmer would know how to keep track of what position all the keys are in. However there is a limit to how many keys the keyboard can detect as pressed, I think I've managed 12 simultanious keys. I think it's a problem with the number of circuit traces on the board and that some overlap to more than one key, but I'm just guessing that, you can open one up and take a look for yourself.
Now if this has been utterly fascinating to you, get out and date more before your fate is the same as the dinasours!
I hope someday some1 makes a keyboard with this key: F**K It
I believe SysRq was added to the AT keyboard to assist with IBM-style terminal emulation.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Instead of letting those keys go to waste, how about remapping them to something interesting ? On my notebook I have my CAPS-LOCK key mapped to escape since the real escape is too small, while the windows keys are mapped to scroll up (like shift-pageup). I also have a key mapped to warp me to the last VC used (very nifty). Read your keymap files - there are some very nice functionality left unmapped. No key should ever go to waste.
is there a url for this happy hacking keyboard? how much would it cost, and des it have a detachible keyboard-num-pad?
-DAVEO
The windows key sends unique scan codes, which would correspond to the scan codes of "F13", "F14" and "F15" keys (or something like that).
Print Screen is a fun button to detect, because (IIRC) it sends 3 (or was it 5) scan codes in direct succession. But neither key is "a nightmare" to detect. You just have to special-case for PrintScreen's specific scan code sequence.
-- close but no sig
someone writing a daemon that records keypress statistics?
You could use this data to design a keyboard for hacking.
IMHO, having the braces and brackets more easily accessible would be cool.
----- Documentation is worth it just to be able to answer all your mail with 'RTFM' - Alan Cox.
Is there any (preferably simple) way to get a) the kernel to recognize the Windows key, and b) to set up macros in Afterstep or E or Windowmaker or whatever with it? I's such a waste sitting there...
On the *Mac*, I actually used those 3 keys -- Control, Option, and Command...and the Mac is *still* the easiest OS to use, even with these "complicated extra 3 keys". The Windows key is annoying, and I rarely even use it in Windows.
If you can think of anything that requires a mouse in Windows, speak up (...)
Yeah, I can think of one thing. Booting windows.
If you do not have a mouse plugged into your computer while booting Win9x GUI, you just get a silly dialog box saying "it's ok for you to plug in a mouse now", and it won't proceed until you do so. Which brings me to a rather silly point....
I installed win98 from scratch on a friend's computer, and I didn't have a mouse plugged in during setup. Everything worked well until the final reboot to start up Win98 for the first time. Then (of course) that stupid "insert a mouse now" dialog box popped up. I inserted a mouse, but it didn't work. Reboot, Reinsert, Check IRQ, Change serial port, it didn't work.
Then i realized: Apparently Windows 98 SETUP did not detect a mouse during install, since, of course, there was no mouse installed; so Win98 SETUP decided not to install a mouse driver. I couldn't get into windows to install a mouse driver, since it demands to detect a mouse first (which isn't really easy to do without the driver).
So I wiped the harddisk, spend another hour reinstalling *WITH A MOUSE PLUGGED IN DURING SETUP*, and what do you know, it worked.
Amazing.
-- close but no sig
The sad thing is that many of the extended keys (as you'd find on the PC-style Apple extended keyboard) don't work in most Mac programs. I was always pressing Del on my old system 7.6 Mac with no results.
Apple did get one thing right by mapping cut-copy-paste-undo to the first four F keys.
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
In XEmacs, any key that has a symbolic X keysym may be bound to a function. You can find out what keysym is being generated with xev. If the key isn't generating an X keysym (in Linux), then you probably need to tweak the console keyboard map loaded at boot. The console keyboard map I use with Linux fails to map the Home and End function keys to anything, but since I never use those keys, I've never bothered to fix it.
On Solaris, XEmacs already binds scroll lock but we don't do anything with it:
C-h c
scroll_lock is undefined
I will have to try to find some way to smuggle this one with me when I finally graduate!
I also use one of the AnyKey keyboards.
The remap can be very confusing though.
Once someone using my keyboard got it
jammed under the monitor which pressed
the remap button. They were then baffled
why many of the keys didn't work anymore.
Gateway was obviously aware of this problem,
as the keyboard shipped with a big sticker
telling you how to reset the keyboard.
The only real irritation with the AnyKey
is that the configuration software only
worked under DOS (it would crash in windows).
First, remap the two keys with the windoze logo to ALT. I did this so long ago I've forgotten the details. I think the one taht says ALT appears to Emacs as the META key, so I map the two new keys to ALT. It's confusing if I think about it so I just don't do that any more.
Second, remap the the "menu" key (the third new one) to I think Hyper. That is now my FVWM2 control key. MENU + INSERT gives me the root menu, MENU + arrows bops among the desktop pages, MENU + HOME moves, etc.
This leaves ALT and META available entirely to prograns, so I don't worry about CTRL-ALT F1 changing consoles on me.
--
Infuriate left and right
I am also using a AnyKey keyboard, and for the most part, I like it. The "Program macro" key, at least to me, is very useful, for example, I have the entire set of F-keys on the left side of the keyboard set up as macros for a DOS pcb program that I still use. However I find the "Remap" key largely annoying, mostly because it is completely unprotected (the "Program Macro" key will only enter program mode if it is pressed with Ctrl, while "Remap" will enter remap mode all by itself) and it is located right at the edge of the keyboard, a perfect place for it to be accidentally pressed while picking up the keyboard, reaching for a CD, etc. And of course, I completely fail to notice the blinking "program" light while I mindlessly type the next line...
The other great thing about it is that it has the * key right between the left Ctrl and Alt keys, no shift required! This is great for typing filenames with wildcards (like *.mp3), as there is no chance of slightly missing a key (and typing 8.mp3, which, of course, doesn't exist). Of course, I have one of the earlier AnyKey keyboards (as in the ones before the Windoze keys). I think if anything happens to the current keyboard layout, they shoud get rid of the Windoze keys, and replace them with something more useful (like *).
the original IBM 101-key keyboard. I have a pile of them, ranging in years from the mid-80s thru the early 90s, and all my friends use them. They have an amazing tactile-click, and they're completely indestructible. I've taken them apart -- the grounding strap in there could take a direct lightning strike. You can also pop off all the key caps (which fit over the actually keys) and remap them very easily.
I've seen them selling (refurbished) for around $80.
BTW, when Fire and Darkness was still a DOS game, you used Alt-SysRq to switch to the text mode console. Ever since we switched to Windows, it's been Scroll Lock. So we like all those extra keys.
I have to say, I do like Sun keyboards with the Ctrl where the Capslock is on all other keyboards (except the original 88-key that came with my IBM PC...now that was old school...)
Well, indeed - serious servers don't have a kbd shoved up their a$$, rather a serial(a or b) connected to some kind of terminal-concetrator (or "sumfin'" like that)... which IMO is as bad as a keyboard that can be reached by the average (l)user - why? ... well, you can telnet in that thingie on a purrticular port and at the login prompt - say the magic word "^]" to get the telnet> where you say again two magic words and the whole MF goes belly up! :)
:)
... :) (BTW, Read The Fantastic(!) Manual (tm) really works wonders )
Don't try this at home^H^H^H^Hwork unless you really know what you are doing (i.e. you really need to do it)...
Ino!~
PS: Magic incantations removed to protect the inocents
If you ever use Lotus Notes, Ctrl+Break is a god send because it stops Notes from whatever crazy task it's hung on.
Scroll Lock also works in Notes and I actually use it (although less now that I have a scrolly mouse.)
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
wow, look how fast i can type qwerty!
We have a few of these keyboards. They are supposed to be "better", but noone I know actually likes them.
Fortunately there's a switch on the back side of the keyboard to select BackSpace or normal Space.
I've noticed that some of the lisp/scheme/ml interpeters/compilers differentiate between the enter and return keys. Return goes to the next line and enter submits the current line to the compiler/interpeter.
"When you sit with a nice girl for two hours, it seems like two minutes. When you sit on a hot stove for two minutes, it
The truly great thing about using weird control :)
sequences is that you accidently learn various
neat features of vi. I had no idea control-p
did word completion in vim until I mistyped
control-[. And most of the features of screen
I've learned through poor typing skills.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
You Said: "That's true in logic, but not in colloquial speech. Treating both definitions as being valid leads to the least frustration. I doubt the colloquial use will disappear any time soon."
coloquial speech has only recently been punished by this mis-use of a term. It is akin to the destruction of the word "virtue" read alasdair Mcintyre - After Virtue on this subject. Begging the question is not when one "asks a question" nor should it ever be.
The DOS communications program Telemate uses the Scroll Lock key to lock the scrollback buffer at a single location. Otherwise, if you close the scrollback window and reopen it it'll go back to the top. I've also seen it used to stop text scrolling in other terminal software.
--
-Rich (OS/2, Linux, BeOS, Mac, NT, Win95, Solaris, FreeBSD, and OS2200 user in Bloomington MN)
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
would not work. And they didn't even have a printer.
MY ASUS P2B motherboard has a spacebar power on feature that is really cool!
I'm using an Ultra5 now, and indeed the series it is part of, really suck when it comes about the frame-buffer - on a 21" that means only 256 colors and a bloody slow window refresh rate. However - I'll get a the Creator 3D upgrade this monday and I'll start kicking some behinds with this station ... :).
... Ctrl replaced Caps and Escape moved down instead of Tilde and the Tilde key moved to hell - at the other end of the row... (I'm still looking for that one sometimes). Otherwise their keyboards really feel wonderful at typing - and don't seem to croak at all (I have the original ones on the Suns at the Univ. since 1993 - and they were *REALLY* abused in the mean time)
Ultra 5s were first shipped with a crappy frame buffer device - but since January this year (I am not sure though) they're much better equiped when it comes to video (and they're at about the same price the old ones were).
Speaking of keyboards - I'm using Sun's for about 6 years - and there was a time when I was so used to the Cut/Copy/Paste/Open/Undo that I was literally trying to use them even when at home on my PC - go figure, my left hand falling off the keyboard in the attempt to press those keys!
On the other hand - the GUI that comes with Solaris isn't that nice (IMNSHO), but one can twist-and-whack (!)it to suit the needs. For me Window Maker is the best choice, and if you're smart enough you can make the DT apps work just fine under almost any other window manager rather than using CDE ad nauseam...
Ino!~
PS: when Sun switched from KBD Type4 to Type5 I was most annoyed by the new key positions
Well, I shuttle mine between work and work(err, I mean "home"). At work I use a Sun Ultra 2 and at home I have a box running Linux and BeOS. It's very, VERY nice to have the same keyboard on both machines. Also, the layout is just about perfect. It can be a bit annoying to switch virtual consoles in Linux, but I don't do that to often.
My previous keyboard was a Northgate Ultra 102, which was also very cool (though large). It had the function keys on the side, the control key next to the "a", and there was a complete duplicate of the number pad that was used for the direction keys. It had a numlock, but I never figured out why.
mike
Who needs another purpose?
The article mentions one alternative, the chordal keyboard. It sounds like an excellent idea-- where could I get such a thing-- either in hardware or software form?
Also, a few multiport adapter companies have converters for sun*PC* ... you could use that, but they're more expensive ($150+USD)
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
No. Actually, *Command-C*, -V, -X, etc from the Mac is the proper way to do this. That way you hit the modifier key with your thumb and the key with your middle or pointer finger. Very comfortable. M$ screwed things up when they ripped off the Mac, and used Control instead. Not nearly as nice, given the standard Control position (which I keep...I don't swap with Caps Lock).
Ick, you like having the modifier key right below the key you're trying to hit? Anyway, you really should switch caps lock/control (or, better yet, make both caps lock and control control, and have no caps lock, which is what I do). Control-C (aka break) Control-V (quote-character) Control-X (in Pine) Control-W (werase) and most other control sequences are all so nice with the control under the tab, because your pinky is already there... I loathe having to move my pinky down two keys...
Get a copy of xkeycaps and duplicate some keys today!
I don't like a one-button help key...again, easy to accidently hit and start up an annoying help system. Better to use command-? or something.
Hmmm... but having a big button there is nice... back when I had to use a Sun5PC keyboard, before I got my Sun5Unix, I had a much larger area in which I could thwap my escape key. The way my keyboard layout is, I can hit escape, null, or help, and they all give me escape. I can sort of push my hand in that general area of the keyboard, and it will work... useful if I'm coming from an icky PC or Mac or something. Anyway, I miss the escape much less when it's above the tab then when it's an inch above the tilde. And I like having the backspace right next to the close bracket... pinky has to move less far.
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
I've heard of this before, I think from that cyborg wannabe guy who goes around with augmented reality glasses, and all these borg looking things attached to his head (no, not Bill Gates). Come on, that guy who can't do html to save his life. (Now it definitely sounds like billga) Hmm, he also has a camera relaying all over the place so his friends know where he is...
Well doesn't he have a chordal keyboard?
But that's beside the point anyway. What I'd like to do is try out a simple commercial version, maybe one that I could plug in on a separate port, to complement my real keyboard in case I get lost.
I totally agree with the visionaries who agree that one day we *will* get a good keyboard (Doug Copeland?), and I'd love to try and get that happening by trying chordal stuff out.
As a guitar player a can see the importance of chords, as in complicated key strokes for one complicated effect. It means your music isn't limited to one style, vibe or state of complexity. One thing that I remember from my move from being a windows html typist to linux apache/.sh configurer is the lack of keystrokes I had become so used to, like c-leftarrow to move forward a word at a time, or shift-c-leftarrow to select or in general the much easier cut & paste, which was the same in any program. These things were very valuable when copying a lot of text from one application to another(usually we had to convert stuff to html that was coming in in pagemaker or in microsoft assistant), and I understand that linux as a server OS, rather than a clerical one doesn't need this so urgently.
But I think that with the ever more varying range of things we use keyboards for, we will need a very strong and radical design of the way we interface with stuff. And to keep the musical analogies going, I would go for the drummer's approach in this case: the drummer uses all parts of his body: arms , legs, and sometimes even backing vocal to provide his part. The result is a well balanced use of the entire body that is both healthy (or healthier than just using your hands and eyes anyway) and more balanced. If configurable, so many different jobs would be done to such a great extent, from admin work to music, to gaming, to html cut and paste jobs.
And I think a chordal keyboard would look much more flashy than a flat, grey, £8 keyboard too! (Anyone got a screenshot of one?)
Ale
ps oh yeah: This is the guy I meant
In fact, all of us at slashdot should start to boycot that alpha thing amid W and R. It could turn fools angry, don't you think?
Fellowship 9/11
Unfortunately they only sell the new IBM-style keyboards with the US key layout. If they made a Swedish (or Finnish, for that matter) 102-key keyboard, I would order one right now.
I used IBM PS/2 model 30 (and the original IBM XT, with a 20 MB HD (full-height, do you ever see a full-height unit nowadays?) and an 8088) around 1990-1992, and I loved the keyboards.
http://www.pfuca.com
I know. First time I used an Ultra was up at CMU. I swear, I've never seen a computer that poor. It was sluggish (okay, it was old, but it was also really, really slow). Solaris had graphical artifacts all over, not redrawing properly and heaven knows what. The keyboard was hideous.
Why on *earth* do people *ever* buy those things? I don't care what Sun gives you -- nothing could make it worth it to use those things.
On the other hand, *SGI* gives you some of the premium you pay back on the case, at least...so there are some redeeming qualities there. I think I want an SGI case for my PC. It'd make a certain fashion statement, and people would always assume that I had more 3d hardware than an 8 meg Millennium G200 in there.
ooh man, don't get me started on sun keyboards. backspace and \ switched, ctrl and caps switched, I really hate those things. Oh yeah, I'm pounding away on one of those old IBM keyboards right now, a ps/2 model from the late 80s. I love it.
Early keyboards had the indicator lamps mounted inside the keys themselves. This was expensive. Moving the indicators elsewhere on the keyboard meant that the keyboard was CHEAPER to manufacture. And the cheapest of all was to put all the indicator lamps in one area of the keyboard.
On the keyboard I'm using at the moment, you just have to *remember* that the order of lights is "Num Lock", "Caps Lock", "Scroll Lock": you'd have a hard time trying to make out the icons (yes, icons: they don't have English text even though this is supposed to be a UK keyboard)moulded into the plastic.
Productivity? Who gives a fig about productivity whan you can save a few pennies on production costs?
The VT-200 and VT-300 have a RETURN key on the "main keyboard" and an ENTER key on the numeric keypad. When you go to change the setup of one of these terminals (by pressing F3), you navigate various menus by using the arrow keys and the ENTER key. It says so right on the screen, but it confused me for months, because I'm used to just pressing the "big key on the right" when documentation specifies ENTER, RETURN, or NEWLINE (not that the latter is terribly commonly mentioned these days).
Must've read too many of those old multiplatform Usborne books -- Basic programs for ZX Spectrum, ZX81, BBC, TRS-80, Apple, VIC 20, and PET micros.
Mind the Gap
One of my colleagues at work has a nifty keycap that he took when I inherited his computer (yes, hand-me-downs at work). It said: PANIC, in nice red plastic, to boot.
Suggested Uses:
Windoze: Brings up a screen showing gates laughing at you (works even at a BSOD!)
Linux: Causes all running non-work apps to save their state, and display a "boss screen" (eg, a telnet window with emacs/vi/vim/pico loaded and a file open)
MacOS: Attempts the complicated "debugger-recovery" (which may or may not work. I haven't used it recently).
BeOS, SunOS, IRIX: ??? (Add to this!)
Why doesn't someone at linux.org or somewhere contact a key manufacturer and make Penguin Keys? They could easily replace the WinKeys, and who cares if they do nothing but put a cute full color penguin on your keyboard?
Fellowship 9/11
Hey, you know someone with the means could start a cottage industry creating Linux keys to replace the Windows keys. But how difficult would it be to replace the keys? Personally I could see an entire keyboard redesign. Why when I had my Atari 800 Computer, the number pad was a seperate device, sort of like a mouse! (It hooked into one of the joystick ports, I think.) Why not make modern keyboards like that? And bring back all text adventure games too...
All the creatures will die, And all the things will be broken. That's the law of samurai. (Jubai, 1605)
The computers I've seen with power keys (i.e., Macs) require that you hold down the power key for a second or two, before it'll even get the gist of shutting down (it'll pop up that familiar: "Quit Program", "Shutdown Computer", "Restart Computer" dialog, I believe).
You'd think even WIndows users might have used more of the keys by now. Duh.
Acting stupid isn't much fun when there's someone around who knows better
I am happily typing on my HH keyboard now as well. I brought it in to my cube, and it get lots of fun questions. A plus. It also happens to be an exceptionally high quality keyboard. The loss of Caps Lock is a huge plus, no more unhPPY SUrpises. I pretty much never used the fancy keys, and basically the necessities remain, just swept under the rug a little.
And so far as desk space goes...I had to switch to a trackball because junk kept blocking the path of my leetle mouse.
Rick Rezinas
-- An image is worth about 2.5E4 characters.
sorry about my ignorance but, i thought that key is ctrl-ESC.
how do i assign that key to meta? i mean, i don't even know its hex number.
Indeed, The iMac keyboard (which unfortunately I am forced to use to type this message in our office) does seem to have gone a little too far in its quest for compactness.
What genius came up with the idea of saving space by losing a few of those infrequently used keys that real computer users obviously don't need, such as the 'del' key, or the hash symbol. Did they do some kind of survey and decide that these were the least used and thus best candidates to remove, whilst "±" and "" were deemed vital enough to remain?
Anyway, enough ranting from me, my serious comment is that surely the distress caused by having a keyboard that is a few centimetres larger and a few grams heavier with some redundant keys that only one user in many will want to use on the second Tuesday of each millenium is well worth it if it prevents users from wanting to tear their hair out as their scour the keyboard for that all important first character of their shell script, C programs etc. Or if it stops users from starting a hate campaign against the MS Excel help wizard when having spent 20 minutes trying to delete a legend from a graph one finally gives in and asks the wizard only to be told to 'Simply select the item to be removed and press the delete key'
Sometimes those odd looking keys that I find on many keyboards turn out to be quite usefull. I have developed quite a fondness for the 'front' key on my Sun when I have a cluttered desktop, Or when using windows keyboards one can do pretty much anything without ever needing to touch the mouse, thanks to the extra keys. Once one plucks up the courage to try out those odd looking windows keys or menu keys that they have placed next to the space bar surely you will forgive the designers for shortening your space bar a little?
On a completely different note to finish off, has anybody ever put any thought into keyboard layouts for programming? I once spent (wasted?) a few months learning to type using the Dvorak keyboard layout and while I found it very nice for typing English (And yes, I think I could type faster using it), it was pretty hopeless for programming, because all those odd symbols like "[]^{}/\.|&~(and hash)" and even "+-/*()" seemind to be put in such inaccesible places as to make it quite painful to use. Has anybody done a study of the usage of the keyboard for these tasks other than word processing or spreadsheets, Whilst in these applications the opening and closing brackets for example are never used, in C++ or something they are probably on par with vowels (well almost)
FWIW, So is X. Well, so long as you use a half-decent WM.
Whenever I hack C code, I use the CapsLock key when I have some DEFINED_LONG_UGLY_CONSTANT to be written. It does save a lot of time and finger strain to just toggle the capses.
Just a minor correction: That should read "and | I get with AltGr+<" (the key between left shift and Z).
Also, AltGr is (was?) labled "Alt Graph" on some keyboards, for "alternate graphics". That's how I always pronounced it.
But it does make it a pain to get to the prompt in telnet et al, which requires that you press Ctrl-AltGr-9 to get the ^] combo. Some keyboard can't handle this, and only beep at you when you try to press it. Mostly true for older keyboards, though.
I got used to typing non-ASCII sequences on a Mac. On a Mac, things are done properly. When I'm typing something and want to use a dash (not those bloodly little hyphens), I typed Option-dash. Simple. Easy. Intuitive, and you won't forget it. It's a marked improvement over Alt-0151, which *isn't* memorable, makes little sense, and is annoying to any computer newbies.
The *sole* advantage of having this is that it's easy to type non-ASCII codes that you know the *decimal* code for. First off, no one aside from programmers is likely to care about this. Second, I can't even think of *any* programmers that would do this. If I want to type invisible funky characters, I open up a hex editor, so I can see what I'm typing while I'm working. Plus, I'm going to be using hex values, not decomal.
Since Linux hasn't yet claimed the Windows key for anything, I wish it would be designated to work like the Mac. You could create dashes, infinity signs, etc easily.
Okay, this isn't a big deal if you use TeX or whatever. But while TeX probably rocks for some things (I've always stuck with plain old markup languages for text-based entry instead of layout languages), there are also times that you can't beat a WYSIWYG system. Someday word processors will be on Linux as they were on Windows. And I don't want to use the freaking moronic DOS/Windows Alt-0xxx things just to type a letter. That's *annoying*.
'to beg the question' is not used in this way... begging the question means that your conclusion is stated in your premises...
Amiga's keyboard had the caps-lock light in the button itself, but I like better how the caps-lock button worked on the Commodore-64 where it was actually lowered when on. My point is that you did not have to look down at the keyboard at all to see if capslock was on. You could feel it.
I have also seen (and felt) another capslock-behaviour on many typewriter keyboards that I have never seen on any computer keyboard (as standard behaviour). That is to automatically inactivate the capslock when a shift key is pressed.
"We mustn't be caught by surprise by our own advancing technology" -- Aldous Huxley
I have Num Lock set up to drop excess ammo in Team Fortress. Hardly a waste of a key.
Too many keys?!?! Bah. I use a 122 key IBM keyboard on a regular basis, and having key combinations bound to f13-f20 and to the ten formatting keys saves me thousands of keystrokes! No more 'Was undo CTRL-X or ALT-Z?' when using the Gimp.. Just press 'undo'. Cut and Paste? They have their own keys.. No stretching to CTRL-Y to ALT-D with one hand. Its great!
.sig: Now legally binding!
On a Mac you can't access the standard menus with the keyboard. (ALT, on a Windows box). This sometimes traps you in a dark place and you have to reach for that mouse...
>>That's because instead of having the indicator lights sprawled across the keyboard, they're in one little area TOGETHER so you can see what's on, and what's off. (To think that it's so hard to figure that out is amazing.)
True, but putting lights in their current one spot position is very slow if you need to determine which light is on. (Left? Middle? Right?, or in some case, Top? Bottom? Middle?) Makes it a bit slower to determine which is lit, and which isn't. Why don't they use multiple colors, instead? Green for NumLock (most common "lock" enabled probably), Yellow for Scroll Lock, and Red for capslock? [Ugh. bad for colorblind. Choose other colors then, there's plenty of LEDs]. Thus, if you see red in the peripheral vision, you know quickly caps lock is on (and you should probably turn it off).
Better yet: why no "HUD" keyboard lights? A little box you stick onto the monitor to see keyboard status quickly (I'm lazy. The less head movements, the better).
The blank key returns a null value in certain programs. Unfortunately, I can't think of which ones at the moment.
I agree with you though. The Sun Type 5c is an incredible keyboard. I'd love to find one that would work with my PC.
Donald Roeber
Generating 2048 Bits of Randomness...
So if we're agreed on keeping all the old keys, why not take this in the logical direction? We could save lots of hand motions if we add a couple of pedals to the computer, like on an organ. Want a few lines of boldface type? Instead of having to go to some damned menu, and either use the mouse or type alt-b [text] alt-b, just hold down pedal #1 while inputting...
And can you imagine what sort of EMACS key combinations you could put in? Escape-Meta-Alt-Control-Shift-Left Pedal-Stop 3-Bellows....
> I believe the 'Alt Gr' stands for 'Alternate Group'...
Dunno. I used to call it 'Alt Green' because the key cap was printed in that colour on one of my old PC keyboards. The Sun 5c keyboard I'm using now is printed with 'Alt Graph'. I still don't know what it's for.
Molly.
I really hate those Windows-only propriatory keys too. I can handle plenty of keys -- as long as they're standardized ones that I can use anywhere. The little "Internet" keys, the "volume" (what, you don't have a far superior volume dial right nex to the computer?), etc. More and more keyboards have them.
I just want a good, kind-to-the-hands keyboards (and ergonomic-split-style...I didn't used to like it, but it's great once you try it). If I want stupid macros or remapping to go off, I wish to high heaven that stupid computer companies would let me do it in software instead of hardware. Yes, Dell/Acer/etc, no one wants your "enhanced" keyboards. They are *lame*. Even if you spent all your time in Windows, I can't see the point. Annoying to the max.
I have the same number of options, they're just on a smaller number of keys :)!
The other day one of the network admins (novell guy, not a unix guy) came by to do something to my machine (gotta love remote admin!). Took one look at my keyboard and said "What the hell is that?" I offered to stay and type for him, he said no. I came back 10 minutes later and he was saying "I don't know how to do control alt delete!" :) (Del on this keyboard is "fn+'".
Duane
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
I just want to know when the world is going to get a clue and start making dvorak-layout keyboards. It might have taken a month for me to get my brain off qwerty, but it was sure worth the pain it saves me now.
"Apple did get one thing right by mapping cut-copy-paste-undo to the first four F keys."
...except when you're used to F1 being there for help, if anything.
But Quake almost certainly reads raw data directly from the keyboard device, and is thus unaffected by NumLock. (in fact, I bet you can bind a command to NumLock..) Daniel
The good old 10-key numpad over there is one of the most useful parts of the keyboard. Sure, most of us don't use it all the time - but when I'm entering columns and columns of numbers into my spreadsheets, hell if I'm going to use that little row up top when I can just slip a hand over to the right and punching in numbers at three times the speed. There's a reason the 10-key is ubiquitous in data entry jobs - it works.
Which WM is most keyboard friendly?
I've only briefly tried one or two.
Even in KDE, which was had good keyboard support, there were apps that wanted to do things differently. For example, ALT-F pulls down the File menu in the KDE text editor, but brings up the Find dialog in Netscape...
quick ramble on the nature of the mac power key: it doesn't shut the computer off. It politely asks the computer to turn itself off. You press the power key and you get a dialog box asking if you want to shut down, restart or cancel. Also, it's always flat-- not sticking up out of the keyboard like other keys. so you can't push it by accidentally placing a heavy object on top of it. You have to actually use your finger. And if you do press it accidentally you just hit cancel. The other thing its there for is the reset sequence-- cntrl-appl-reset is the apple equivilent of cntrl-alt-del. Also appl-power opens up the debugger, and if you're in linuxppc then option-power kills x.
The main problem with this is that apple is too heavily reliant on the keyboard power thing-- it is literally impossible to turn on a mac without the power key. All macs have an emergency off button on the case somewhere, but not an on button. For a computer based so heavily on GUI, it's ironic that without a keyboard you can't even turn the damn thing on.
- mcc-baka
my life is more meaningful than yours, because i know a lot about keyboards.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Years ago I wrote an Aegis (remember that anyone ;) utility to count which keys I pressed and when..
Was shocked to discover that 1/5th were never pressed at all.
Anyone ever tried this with a modern U*nix or Windoze box. I bet even the 'I have 1024 key bindings and use em all' brigade actually don't use the whole keyboard.
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
I used to work on a PLC control system that was half Siemens and half Bailey. You could work on the Bailey system through a DOS machine we had, but the Siemens system had it's own terminal with an alphabetic keyboard and it ran CP/M.
I still shudder when I think of wheeling a chair from one to the other all night and having my brain absolutely freeze up each time I switched systems.
Laugh while you can, monkey boy!
We need to be able to comunicate with and control our PCs using only our minds. This physical interface stuff is just lame. And I don't think speech recognition is the way to go either. It's so laborious to speak long documents. If you could just think them onto the screen, it would be so much better. Also, can you imagine Quake deathmatch using just thought control. Then we'd see who has the best twitch!
(This looks like a great excuse for my to get a rant/idea off my chest, and being at the bottom of an already overloaded comments section insures that no one will see it so I won't get too embarrassed.)
The whole idea behind "function" keys is to be generic reprogrammable keys. They are deliberately vague. "F1" means nothing. Pressing it might bring up Help, select a new window, fire a shotgun, paste text, select the artillery squad, or abort a download -- depending on what program has focus. "F1" just isn't descriptive enough. Alas, there's nothing else that would be more description -- unless the key were to be labelled with "paste", "abort", "artillery", etc. But we all know that it's impossible and silly for a key to be labelled all those different things.
Or is it? Imagine this: Function keys with little displays on them. Depending on what app has focus, the labels on the keys would change.
Heck, maybe even the whole keyboard could be like that. Imagine changing a user preference and suddenly your keyboard changes from QWERTY to DVORAK -- including the keycaps! Pretty cool, huh? That way, if you decided to learn DVORAK, and Mom wants to use your computer to type a letter, she won't cry when she sees the confusing letters.
Does anybody already make something like this?
---
Have a Sloppy night!
As copyright owner of this comment, I authorize everyone to defeat any technological measure which limits access to it.
The article says that many keys on the keyboard are redundant. Just a thought, but isn't mentioning SysRq and Print Screen as seperate keys pretty redundant in itself? It also says "And someone should explain why the Caps Lock light is often on the opposite end of the keyboard from the Caps Lock button." Well, I'd be happy to. That's because instead of having the indicator lights sprawled across the keyboard, they're in one little area TOGETHER so you can see what's on, and what's off. (To think that it's so hard to figure that out is amazing.)
Later in the article, it criticizes Print Screen, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break (Mentioned as 2 seperate keys...redundant, eh?) Insert, Delete, End, Home, and Page Down & PageUp. I'll admit, I RARELY use Scroll Lock, but as for all the others, I use them on a daily basis. I'd be pretty pissed if they decided to take them off.
THEN, the article goes on to say "Everyone hates NumLock..." BULLSHIT. I Love NumLock, and I use the keypad for numeric entry every day. I find it's faster then using the numeric row. As for it being redundant, I disagree. Some people use the number row faster then the keypad, and they should have that option.
I'm going to go hug my NumLock now.
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon?
-- Give him Head? Be a Beacon? :P)
(If you can't figure out how to E-Mail me, Don't.
I find my left hand aiming for a non-existant "Front" key much too often. It's the best key ever invented! Just point at your window and press "Front", no need to click in some stupid title bar or anything, which may not even be visible. Press "Front" once more, and back goes your window. I love it.
And what happened to "Do", "Help", "Prior", "Next" and "Setup"? I used DECStations some years ago, and had "Do" mapped to M-x in Emacs. Cool.
My ideal keyboard would be something like a standard 105-key PC keyboard, with the left F-key row from a Sun 5c and a few others from a standard DEC keyboard, with the feeling of the IBM XT/AT-keyboards, and with some custom keymapping... Well, one can always dream.
This may just be a crazy idea off the top of my head, but sometimes in X I zoom in on a window (with Ctrl+Alt +/-) for whataver reason, and moving the mouse pans the screen display around the entire area of the desktop. I think it would be convenient if I could just turn on Scroll Lock, and the mouse would be confined to the visible area of the screen, not panning outside of that. Of course, releasing the Scroll lock would return the mouse behavior to normal.
I dig my Sun keyboard too - lotsa little pushy buttons. STOP-A. Wooohoo! Try this on your server. ;>
Naw, in all seriousness... I'm starting to take a liking to keyboards without number pads and scrunched together a little like the Happy Hacker or similar.
The Microsoft "Elite" and similar crap is just way too big. Put a couple next to each other - there goes half your desk!
Years ago I wrote an Aegis (remember that anyone ;) utility to count which keys I pressed and when..
Was shocked to discover that 1/5th were never pressed at all.
Anyone ever tried this with a modern U*nix or Windoze box. I bet even the 'I have 1024 key bindings and use em all' brigade actually don't use the whole keyboard.
EeeZee
"Oops, I always forget the purpose of competition is to divide people into winners and losers." - Hobbes
No. Actually, *Command-C*, -V, -X, etc from the Mac is the proper way to do this. That way you hit the modifier key with your thumb and the key with your middle or pointer finger. Very comfortable. M$ screwed things up when they ripped off the Mac, and used Control instead. Not nearly as nice, given the standard Control position (which I keep...I don't swap with Caps Lock).
Why not create a keybord like the SUN keyboard that has keys for Cut, Copy, Paste and Help?
Um...it exists. Most decent word processors use F1-F4 for undo, cut, copy, and paste respectively. At least on the Mac, Insert is Help (no reason for an insert/overstrike key...overstrike mode is an incredibly stupid relic of the DOS days).
I don't like using the single keys (and wish they'd be removed) because a) it's faster to hit command-v than reach up for F4...you don't have to move your fingers as far, b) single keys are too easy to hit accidently. This is why M$ as a freaking idiotic interface, with lots of "are you sure you want to...?" dialogs -- they used easy-to-accidently-invoke single key commands like delete to delete a file. On the Mac, *commands* from the keyboard require multiple keys to be pressed, so you don't need a warning. Much better design.
I don't like a one-button help key...again, easy to accidently hit and start up an annoying help system. Better to use command-? or something.
Newbies would have an easier time if instead all systems had intuitive keys like the Mac does (Command-Q for quitting instead of Alt-F4, anyone?), and if those keys were standardized (Some UNIX apps die with Q (mikmod/less), some with Control Q (gimp), some with Command Q (Code Crusader [btw, this IDE rox]), etc.
One button *commands* are almost always a bad thing. Require them to push command-button or control-button or something instead.
i spent quite awhile using the iMac keyboard this summer on someone else's computer, and it was sheer hell. It's too small, and it has quite a few keys missing, not because of simplicity but just because they don't have much room.
The problem with this is they left out "end" and "forward-delete" along with the keys that don't do anything. And for someone like me who has gotten horribly dependant on forward-del, it was difficult to try to remember not to use it because it wasn't there.
The thing that pissed me off was they left the "help" key on the keyboard, right next to the delete key like it is on a normal keyboard, the one place where it's easiest to hit it accidentally. Now, if there is one key on the entire keyboard that needs to die, it is the "help" key. (for you windows users, i think it's labeled "insert".) It serves no real purpose, since there's a "help" menu. The only thing it does is that you accidentally hit it when you're trying to press the delete key (it's very close). And then you have to wait for the program's online help to go and load so you can close it. If i knew how i would have remapped the help key to forward-del, but i couldn't figure out how. Anyway i'm glad to be back home on my macally extended with the 33 extra useless keys again. (in my book, the num pad is useless except for first-person game purposes, and my home computer has no 3d card, so..)
and yes, the light in the imac caps lock means you don't have to look at the other side of the keyboard. But it does mean that your left hand is always in the way of the light. so you have to move your left hand to see. Of course the reason it's there in the first place is, again, no room for an independant caps light.
alright, i think i've released some of my pent-up angst now by yelling about keyboards. thank you for listening.
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
The whole idea does not sit well with me. If they change the keyboard layout, I will be most un-happy. Anyone who knows me, knows I dont need another reason to make type-o's :)
How do you do ALT-SysRq-s, ALT-SysRq-u and ALT-SysRq-b, without a SysRq? Ok, in most cases you may live with the functionallity provided by gpm (Tripple click both left and right mouse buttons, the click one button again), but that will only work if things didn't wen that wrong...
Besides that, people uses TVs with a set of buttons for normal use (Change channel, volume etc), and a set of buttons for config. use (tune in a station, set colour balance, etc). They seems not to have any problem with that. SO, why would they have problem with some extra "strange" keys on their computer keyborads? I've never heard any "average joe" complain about that as a hard thing with computers... Everything else, but not the keyboard...
A thing that they do complain over is the key-combinations. Like Ctrl-C for copy, etc. Why not create a keybord like the SUN keyboard that has keys for Cut, Copy, Paste and Help? And when w're at it, we may even add keys like "move a word forward/backward", "move to end/start of paragraph/line/document" (Line does allready exist as home/end, but they are sometimes mapped to document), "Indent more/less".
--The knowledge that you are an idiot, is what distinguishes you from one.
Well, you'd think that's what the "Help" key would be for, except when it doesn't do anything (which is usually).
So much for Human Interface Guidelines...
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
Uh, so get a Mac that doesn't use software power-on. My 6100/60 doesn't. You have to use hardware power-on (to my great sorrow). I think it's possible to disable the requirement of using the keyboard to turn on the power somehow...like, I think that on the Macs designed to be servers, there's a little thing you can turn with a screwdriver that makes the thing work with hardware-power on.
Actually, Macs have Command instead of Alt (on the old keyboards) and still have a control. The Option key is there also.
Nothing is more useless, imho, than the Windows95 keys, which seem to serve the unique purpose of making the spacebar 3 inches long.
The best keyboard layout would be the PowerBook's if not for a few problems. First, it has a useless "Enter" key to the right of the spacebar, where there is traditionally a Cmd key. Fortunately this can be remapped. Second, the arrow keys are too small. Third, you should be able to use the f-keys to do anything. I mean, doesn't the F stand for function? I should be able to launch Netscape by pushing f5 if I want. The iBook lets you do that. Diehard keypad users who need to enter tons of numbers can set the numlock and the keypad gets mapped to the 789-uio-jkl-m,. keys. It fits the most useful stuff in the smallest space while maintaining a "full size" keyboard and drops the useless "print screen," "scroll lock, " and "pause" keys that I have never pressed. There, I pressed them. Wow.
Also, the Powerbook and iMac have the light for the Caps Lock button INSIDE the caps lock button. So if you want to see if it's on, you don't look on the other side of the keyboard.
The most useful key on the entire keyboard, of course, is the power button. Why have no other manufacturers picked up on this?
rooooar
This article just seems like the editors were out of ideas and needed SOMETHING to come up with, so they decided to complain about the keyboard layout and "redundant" keys.
I use all those "redundant" keys, except for maybe the scroll lock. Yes, I know there are two sets of arrow keys, and two Insert/delete/home/end/etc keys. That provides flexibility. Its an advantage, not a curse.
I personally like to use the keypad for arrows and use the regular typewriter keyboard number's for typing in numbers. My Numlock key is always off for this reason. Pause still works in those programs that take advantage of it.
And besides. There ARE keyboards that either compress or remove those useless keys. They're on laptops. Now, do you REALLY want to type on a laptop keyboard when you're sitting at your desk? Those keyboards are cramped and for me a pain in the ass. I'll take my 101 keyboard anyday (although I REALLY could do without those 3 windows keys)
Come on people. We don't NEED to complain about keyboards just because its a standard that nobody ever saw the need to change.
Play with my webcams and lights here
What's this idea about the wintendo keys beeing useless?
i've mapped a lot of letters + win to do windowmanager functions for
for me -- win-x maximizes, win-z minimises, win-tab switches etc.
This leaves any control and meta/alt combinations free for
applications to use. Also win-q is easier to press than alt-f4.
I'll have to admit I can't remember the last time i used the scroll lock and print screen keys (in fact i don't think i've ever used the scroll lock). The MS keys are pretty useless too, although I found out they are set up on mandrake 6.0, I think they switch terminals. Anyway, the excpetion here is the pause key. I do use that from time to time and in fact I used it today. So please... Save the Pause Key.
I either:
rest my left hand on the arrow keys;
or use my thumb to move down.
Of course, for long data entries, it helps to realize Enter usually moves one cell down, and Tab moves one cell across.
No, it does not "beg the question". You mean it "raises the question".
To "beg the question" is a logical fallacy with an unfortunate name. It is also known as circular or recursive logic.
---
Put Hemos through English 101!
"An armed society is a polite society" -- Robert Heinlein
Linux MAPI Server!
http://www.openone.com/software/MailOne/
(Exchange Migration HOWTO coming soon)
just try it on ms-dos. every line you type
appears magically on the printing device.
so the complete CON: device gets copied to PRN:
if no printer is connected to the port you
get an error (which you cannot cancel)
sysrq + no printer = have to reboot
:-))
Meme of the day: I browse "Disable Sigs: Checked". So should you.
First of all I'd like to say that I didn't read the article because I hate "free" accounts, if its free why would you need an account anyway?
But couldn't we just get rid of those stupid WinDos keys? They annoy the crap out of me, I keep pressing them by accident that's why I rip them off immediatly (linux has no use for them anyway). Nowadays it seems that you can't get a decent keyboard without them (I'm still looking for a secondhand old fashoned IBM PS/2 keyboard for here @ work)
BTW. now that I'm whining about WinDos: [CTRL] - [ESC] is the shortcut for one of them does anybody know what the shortcuts for the others are (if any)
I don't play Quake, but I do play games like it. I've never had to turn NumLock on to play these games with the number pad. So what is this guy talking about?
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
Not to mention how you can then write a little Forth program to change your UID in the process tables.
l/p: marketingweasel I guess "cypherpunk" is broken...
Each key is clear plastic with an LCD display...Extrapolate ... The Next Next Generation: A Full colour Flat Panel Touch Sensitive Display .. Extrapolate... Why did innovation stop at the 104 key barrier while the 640K barrier was still around.
You think it would be better to make idiots adapt to the current standards rather than let the keyboards adapt to idiots. We should educate them! But I do admit some of these keys seem inherently evil. Perhaps we should have a Dvorak revolution! Well, that's probably not going to happen. The Num pad must stay. It is too valuable for both gameplay and severe number crunching Who thinks we should have built-in accent capabilities like the french do?? Important/ unimportant? Personally, i think that the windows key is the most evil thing on the keyboard, in second is that right-click key. I have a ergonomic keyboard with my new dell, does anyone know what the hell that key is, the one which is by the num/alpha/slock lights and has this arrow pointing at them? I tdoesn't seem to DO anything!! AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
1) It is not true that the Prt/Scr ScrollLock and Pause/Break keys are no longer used in windows apps.
...)
I used to work on vt420 and HP70092 terminals. They had more keys than modern PC keyboards. I Also liked the colorful siemens-terminal keyboards. PC keyboards are a nightmare if you want to emulate e.g. vt220 keyboard (map F17 to your PC... same for HP70092 which had keys for DELETE LINE, CLEAR SCREEN, INSERT LINE etc... keys). I would like to see more useage of the old F-keys. They are there and can do more than F1/help and alt-F4/close.
Instead of banning keys, I'd rather have them reinstated.
(Excel uses scroll/lock to alter the scrolling behaviour, Reflection uses it as equivalent for ctrl-S (XOFF), Textpad uses it in the same way as Excel,
2) Ever tried using international keyboards (use one computer with US/QWERY, one with FR AZERTY and one with GER/QWERTZ in fast succession and you'll find yourself in keyboard hell.) A keyboard should be something that goes with the person at the computer, not with the computer (e.g. buy and configure a 'personal keyboard' that you can easily plug in any computer)
core dumped.
That's an enormous amount of space saved!
Then, because it's a VR model, you can give it as many or as few keys as you like, placed where you like. Don't like QWERTY? Design your own style!
Finally, with everything in VR, and people getting to design things the way that works for them, we can get rid of condescending IBM keyboard designers and half-brained journalists, and get some work done!
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)
I've _never_ seen anybody (besides newbies) play Quake with either set of arrow keys. I've noticed that most experienced players grip the mouse with their right hand and the W/A/S/D with their left -W jump/forward (preferential I believe), A strafe left, S back/duck (preferential again), and D strafe right.
- Somebody who plays too much Quake
Nup... that's not working for me either. Dang - maybe I'll have to actually register now. Hmm... billg@microsoft.com.... ;)
Only if the admin left security-mode=none
But with SysRq not around, you'll just finish up customising bindings to mimic its function, as its particular task can't (simply) occur without a button to do it. I think that that symbol which is normally found amid W and R is possibly a good option for this, as it normally hasn't such an important job to do; it's usually fairly straightforward to vary what you say, to avoid wanting it to work in a standard way.
FWIW, I think Sun has the best keyboards. And Openwindows (olvwm) is a darn spiffy Windowmanager. Its simple and clean and has everything I need. No fluff. Anyway, this is mostly an issue of being most comfortable with what you grew up on. bkr
(Yes, I know about the Avant keyboards, but they're $189. People who sell Northgate keyboards on Ebay normally don't have the swappable keys...)
--
http://www.aikiweb.com - AikiWeb Aikido Information
well, i tried cypherpunk/cypherpunk, got bummed an came here to check out the new one. cypherpunk s
creative, no? ^_~
If it's really necessary to remove keys from the keyboard, ditch the main numeric keys or use them for something else; the numeric keypad is far more useful, especially if you do a lot of numeric data entry --- I couldn't get 14,000 keystrokes per hour on the main numeric keys, and there are professional ten-key operators who are more than twice as fast as I am.
That being said, the NYT article is a shining example of what happens when you let technically inept journalists write tech stories. All the keyboard does is send coded signals to the PC; it's up to the OS to interpret them. Under Linux, it's easy enough to change the interpretation of keycodes, and there's third party software to do it under Windows. Change your keyboard to suit your personal tastes. If you're ambitious (or just obsessive-compulsive), you can get custom keycaps and labels for reasonable prices from several companies, or just buy blank keycaps and label them with a sharpie.
Frankly, I wish I had a couple of rows of extra keys above the function keys where I could store convenient macros without dinking with the regular keys. IMHO, keyboards aren't too big and complex, they aren't big and complex enough. (Hunt around: some companies sell "keyboards" that consist of arbitrary arrays of programmable keys in a variety of sizes, shapes, and switch types.)
I realize this won't appeal to the clueless newbies the NYT article was discussing, but there's a limit to how far things can be dumbed down before they become useless.
numLock is a pain in the neck! Why should a number keypad DUPLICATE functionality that already exists on other keys that are already dedicated to the task. The only reason people use numLock is because they are forced to because of stupid initial design flaws.
I think Microsoft, who saw fit to ignore them for so long, should have used SysRq and Break (or maybe some Fx keys) to perform its special functions required for Windows 9x/NT.
Now we're stuck with embraced/extended hardware with unintelligible icons on them that perform absolutely no function whatsoever in any other OS.
Has anyone found a use for these in Linux or other alternative OSes? Perhaps a good piece of gag software is lying around for these...let me know.
Certified Microsoft Notworking Specialist
No Sun servers of any type I know of has a keyboard attached to it for some passerby to 'Stop-A' by mistake. W/O a keyboard plugged it during bootup, console I/O goes into serial port A, and when it is plugged into a terminal server, voila, hundreds of consoles at the tip of your finger(Via telnet.) Of course, the Stop-A equivalent is still there if you have to break out of a toasted box.
(actually QuakeII) Having that damn Windows key next to the left control key is like having a landmine next to the clutch pedal in your car. If I hit it by mistake, QuakeII gets minimized but continues to run. By the time I get the game on the screen again I'm usually dead.
The proof is in the pudding man--I have eliminated all non-USB devices on my system, and it works better, faster, and more reliably than it did when I had multiple incompatible I/O connectors. Mouse, keyboard, scanner, ZIP drive, QuickCam, CD-ROM Writer, and Printer are all on USB, and it works great. Your point is nothing more than theoretical crud, because i've done it, and it works. Multiple incompatible legacy I/O connectors are for stupid luddites who can't think of a better system, because they're stuck in the rut of old legacy connectors. Advances in system design only come from those who strive for excellence and elegance. Your comments simply display a sense of mediocracy: "it works GOOD ENOUGH, so why should we change...". Those who accept the Status-quo will perish.
The 101 keyboard seems to have strived to be all things to everyone. I don't think I'd want a different layout. In games, the arrow keys are needed in the inverted T. Word processing and other document control requires the block above the arrow keys. I use them all the time. If I'm enetering the occasion number, it's nice to have the numeric keys above the qwerty keys, but if I'm in excel, entering scads of numbers, I want the keypad on the right.
I suppose we could get rid of the f keys and the print screen, scroll lock, and pause buttons, but I use those occasoinally too. Plus the keyboard would look dorky if it had less depth.
-Adam
You should be using the mouse for all your navigation. the mouse buttons are jump and fire, and I use the left hand's home row for other controls. left:S, right:R, forward:E back:d. Q, A, and Z can navigate up and down as well as the mouse. you really have a lot more keys at your disposal with the main board then you would with the num pad. I can also reach W, T, G,B,V and even C if I need aditional commands.
one of the things I hate about quake is that you can't use the num pad to enter IP addresses of quake servers.
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
Also known as the fuck-you-up-when-you're-playing-doom keys. I have a completely microsoft-free system, except for this ominous reminder on my keyboard of how much vendors toady up to Microsoft.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
Here in Quebec I see a lot of French(Canadian) keyboards, and they all have an 'Alt Gr' key on them. I believe the 'Alt Gr' stands for 'Alternate Group', or in French, 'Alterner Groupe'. I think it's used for certain key combos, such as certain types of accents that are rarely used. I remember under Windoze I had to use them quite a bit.
it's particularly funny if you read it to yourself with your grandpa's voice :)
My wife bought a phone because she thought it looked stylish. It has 1-2-3 going down the first column, 4-5-6 in the middle column, and so on, with *-0-# at the right side. Try dialing that puppy to answer a page in the middle of the night! I often wanted to kill the person who came up with that design, or at least throw the f***ing thing in the trash, but we still have it because my wife likes it. I guess one of these days it will "accidently" get broken.
44 keys HA!, we were using morse code back in the good ole dayz...
Win 95 network get traumatized..."I hate computers...they always crash on me!" and the like.
I hope you relize that any poorly setup network will crash, including MacOS based ones. Infact, macs crash much more due to the lack of protected memory.
why on earth M$ shows *drives* that no one cares about instead of disks is beyond me),
Its really not hard to tell someone how to get files off there disk under windows. I mean you would have to be *really* stupid not to be able to understand the consept of a "drive". Just beacuse the computer dosn't work exactly the same as yours does, dosn't mean it sucks. The fact that MacOS is *the* most crash prone OS around, does make it suck.
yes, the mac may be simpler for *very* stupid people, but windows9x and NT4 are not very dificult to grasp. And mac leaves very little for real "power users" to do at all, whereas windows still has a CLI
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
This one really pisses me off.
Alot of the snot-noses around here insist on calling it 'Alt+Ctrl+Del' when any moron can look down on the keyboard, scan left to right across the bottom and see, plain as day: Ctrl, then... Alt, then... Del. How much simpler do they have to make it!
It's all I can do to keep from grabbing them by their ponytails, shoving their faces into the keys, and dragging their pimply mugs across the pad. CTRL...ALT...DEL. Remember it dickwad.
I realize I'm a bit of a zealot on this one, but for Chr*st'sake, show the keyboard makers a little G*d-d*mn respect.
It would really kick ass if we had a C/C++ extension to our keyboards with all the keywords like for, while, new, etc... How about a scientific num pad with sin, cos, tan, etc... sqrt, etc, etc...??? Blah...
This has been haunting me for years, and nobody I know has any clue... please help me before my head implodes.
spoo
Does anyone else remember the wonderful keyboard that Gateway 2000 was packaging in the early 90s? It had a full bank of 8 arrows (including Diagonals) and every single key on it (Except maybe shift and Caps Lock) could be assigned a Macro sequence, including multiple simultaneous combinations. It was nice and roomy, I think it had lights in the caps lock,scroll lock, and Numlock keys. It not only was an extremely useful keyboard, but if someone else had one you could remap the whole keyboard and really give them a start. :-)
"Proximity to wonder has blunted our perception and appreciation of it" --Tim Hartnell in 'Exploring ARTIFICIAL INTELLI
People, if they are opperant, meaning they try stuff out and see if they get positive or negative results, will find that nothing happens when you use them. If they were so curious as to press keys, why not press the F12 key?
If they are people who need to be trained, they won't touch it unless instructed to. And if they do become operant to that effect, they'll hit it... and they may eek in joy to find out their computer didn't blow up.
Moral of the story? Should they try to refine the washer to have to not have that idiotic permanent press setting since few people use it? C'mmon.. we are getting too picky now a days...
So must we confuse people who need or are used to these keyboards with new ones? Sounds like he's refuting his own areguement, but sounds like he's recognizing a non-existant problem. Um, pause, break, escape, scroll lock and break do their functions in a lot of the programs I use.. and if I press them to test them and they don't work, i've spent 5 extra seconds. sorry.. ranting. i'll stop now =)I'm too sexy for this post.... so sexy it hurts...
-
ping -f 255.255.255.255 # if only
I belive
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
hello, tech support? There is NO 'any' key!
Sorry, old joke.
Chuck
try { do() || do_not(); } catch (JediException err) { yoda(err); }
Here is a way to get that functionality by binding Alt-Down and Alt-Up.
;Scroll buffer without moving point
(defun scroll-down-line ()
"Scroll one line down."
(interactive)
(scroll-down 1))
(defun scroll-up-line ()
"Scroll one line up."
(interactive)
(scroll-up 1))
(global-set-key [M-down] 'scroll-up-line)
(global-set-key [M-up] 'scroll-down-line)
You civilians and your ergonomic keyboards. The first system I used in the Air Force had the keys in ALPHABETICAL ORDER! Dammit, we're the military and things will be orderly! None of this 'Q' next to the 'W'. Oh yeah, and everytime you made a mistake a buzzer went off -- the same one that alerted you to aircraft emergencies -- just so the entire operations center would know you screwed up ;)
By my count there are thirty-thee keys on my keyboard that I have NEVER used. I would rather have a little more desk space than some extra unused keys. (The problem is compounded by the fact that I have three keyboards on my desk.) I for one would like a simpler smaller keyboard.
um, yes, the mac does thigns "properly" and I'm glad to have your advice on what's "stupid". Only having one mouse button is pretty fucking anoying, and I'd bet it's a lot more annoying to more people then not being able to hit 'option-dash' once every 8 billion keystrokes. I mean yes, I constantly am thinking to myself "wouldn't it be nice to be able to type the infinity symbol with just one keystroke?", but then I think of my right mouse button, my computer that cost half as much, and My OS, witch, while sucking compared to Mac OS, is a hell of a lot more stable.
also, the windows key isn't a 'normal' key, it fires an intrupt, or does somthing else like that (I think). and if you had half a clue, you would know that there are word procesors on Linux, and that under Xwindows, you can remap your keyboard however you like...
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
While I agree about the numeric keypad being very useful, IMO the main numeric keys are too. They let me type occasional numbers without having to move my hands. Doing something like coding while having to move my hand to another area of the keyboard to enter numbers would slow me down a lot.
Now that is the keyboard dreams are made of...
MetallicBurgundy
I've got an old ADM5 terminal (I got it for a quarter :) it's got sepreate Carrage Return and line feed buttons. CR move the cursor to the begining of the current line, and Line feed moves the courser down one line.
it's pretty freaky
"Subtle mind control? Why do all these HTML buttons say 'Submit' ?"
ReadThe ReflectionEngine, a cyberpunk style n
I personally know and work with Dr. Regis Magyar at AT&T (we work together in the Usability Assurance Engineering team on the HR Intranet) and he told me that he was badly misquoted. He won't go into all the details because he's still fuming over the article. Hopefully I can convince him to post what he *really* said on /. soon...
Yup. Anyone who enters a lot of numeric data pretty quickly finds that one hand over the numeric keypad allows you to enter data -much- faster than the regular number keys. I worked for a summer at a reception desk, and had to process requests from clients, each of which needed to be assigned a lot of very long numbers. My job would have been a lot slower without the keypad...
If you follow your right hand, you see index finger on Alt, ring finger on Ctrl, and pinky stretching over to Del. ..at least on my keyboard, where I can actually reach all 3 keys one handed.
Seriously, get a life, man. You obviously are stuck in the two-handed mindset. There's a reason it's also sometimes called "the vulcan nerve pinch," due to the awkward way you have to crook your fingers to do it. "3-finger salute," anybody?
Still, I say Ctrl-Atl-Delete because it's more musical sounding. Alt-Ctrl-Del sounds like you're barking out commands in Klingon.
If it's for-profit but free, you're not the customer -- you're the product (e.g., the Slashdot Beta's "audience").
The PowerBook has an "Enter" key because for some reason Macs treat "Enter" and "Return" differently. Most applications treat them the same, but there were some older apps (Excel 2?) where Enter and Return have different meanings. This used to pose a problem on the original Mac keyboard, which only had a Return key.
Just file this post under "More useless information".
--
Business. Numbers. Money. People. Computer World.
"And someone should explain why the Caps Lock light is often on the opposite end of the keyboard from the Caps Lock button. "
:-)
This funny, because where the keyboard LEDs are located now provides a nice, standard, centralised location for keyboard info. Have I had any problems with it? Not especially. The only instance I can think of comes from a friend, whose girlfriend was, frankly, computer illiterate. We built a computer for her family. He'd finished setting ICQ for her, and password protected it. The password is, of course, case sensitive. Some hours later, after returning home, he receives a frantic phone call from her. She littery yells for 5 minutes and seems quite distraught. He asks her the problem. "ICQ won't let me on, even though I typed in my password properly." His responce, "look at the caps lock light." She then became very quiet, and said, "never mind."
It seems to me the only people who have problems with keyboards are people who haven't used them much, or just don't know how to type. As for scroll lock being a useless appendage (along with pause, and sysrq), I use it in Linux all the time! Although, I must say, I used pause in DOS where I now use scroll lock in Linux, but that's just a function of proper terminal emulation.
I just wish numlock would stay on in Linux without me having to edit kernel source and/or place setleds in the startup scripts. Damnit, I use it to enter numbers quickly!
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
I guess it's time to go looking for a keyboard with penguin keys ..... I wonder exactly what a penguin key would do if I pressed it ....
If they're going to dumb down a keyboard, they should do it somewhat like the iMac's.
No, I don't mean in terms of layout or size. I'm stuck on Grandma's iMac at the moment and I hate the keyboard. But consider: 12 function keys, the standard character set, the standard modifiers, Caps, Tab, the arrows, a standard numpad, Help, Home, Page Up, and Page Down. What else do you need, except perhaps a couple more function keys if you're an F-key freak?
Scroll Lock, SysRq, PrintScreen (unless you're on a Windoze box where the key supposedly takes a screenshot but doesn't even save the picture on the disk), and others like that have served their purpose. They were designed for ancient terminals, so few of which are in use today (with the ones that are in use being phased out, and no new ones being sold) that you certainly don't have to make new keyboards for them (especially since simply being able to use one renders a user non-clueless by definition, so you're not dumbing the keyboard down by removing them).
I'm for getting rid of superfluous keys that even the average Linux user has probably never used. Just don't cut out too many keys.
simplicity and elegance in design comes from distinguishing between the essential and the inessential. consolidate and simplify. the less keys you need to do everything the better. get rid of all that old legacy keys crap. the scroll-lock, the num-lock have no place on a modern keyboard, they just add clutter. this reminds me of people who want to cling to the old I/O standards. you used to have: i) a connector for a keyboard, ii) a connector for a mouse, iii) a connector for a printer, iv) a connector for a modem, v) a connector for a scanner/ZIP drive. that's FIVE connectors, and all of them different, and all of them incompatible. now with USB you can finally get rid of all those damn ports and just have ONE port. simplified, and more elegant design--better. who in their right mind still wants all those crappy old ports when you can replace them all with one simplified universal connector?!?! "everything should be made as simple as possible; but no simpler."
Anyone know how to do anything useful with the "multimedia" keys on the newer keyboards? Those are the little nubbin ones that typically (under Windows) control the cd player, volume, sleep/suspend, etc. They don't seem to be recognized under Linux, and I haven't seen any docs on how to get them to be recognized.
Bryan
d
www.HearMySoulSpeak.com
Ok, first of all, this seems like a pretty poorly researched article coming from somebody like the NY Times. The keyboard HAS changed since the 80's (the win95 keys, the extra function keys)! The dvorak keyboard is much faster than the qwerty (i have no idea what that scientist from england was talking about, qwerty forces you to type with only one hand very often) and also safer (less likely to get carpal tunnel). and really, how many quake players move around with the number pad (it allows us to move diagonally more easily? ever heard of a mouse?!) Anyway, the point of all this is that if they are going to change the keyboard, all they should really do is go from qwerty to dvorak. the rest of the keys should stay, and they shouldn't add any more keys.
There was a nice discussion from the poll about numlock about the AnyKey keyboards that let you remap keys and make macros. I have one that I got off an old gateway 486/25 and it has nicely macro-able '*' and '\' keys where the win95 keys are on today's keyboards, and does so without comprimising spacebar length. It has 2 sets of f-keys and I use the one on the side exclusively for macros. It also has a full blown arrow key block with diagonals and a space key in the middle that some have pointed out as usefull in games like doom. The only keys I don't press daily are the programming keys and Print Screen. Scroll Lock I don't use at all, I just use Page Up and Page Down. I always leave numlock ON because who needs two sets of arrow keys right next to eachother? Some programs don't let me use Delete, because they think it's BackSpace, and that really bothers me because I think I use Delete at least as much as BackSpace.
I don't know about you, but I feel there isn't enough keys. I propose a rows of small buttons across the top, sides, and bottom of the keyboard.
... well ... they suck! If you happen to remap your keyboard through software you still have to pry off the keys and move them around, and often they don't fit in the new position (well unless you file them down and re-shape them).
The ones on the side could adjust your motherboard speed/voltage settings and those pesky monitor settings (an on/off button for your monitor would be really usefull).
The ones across the bottom could be quick web link buttons (slashdot.org and HotYoungAsainGayPorn.gov would be two of my fav's). I could use a set of volume controls as well, the creative sound mixer is ok, but then you have to move the mouse.
As for the top row, a whole slew of buttons (at least 40) so you can assign them to individual programs, it's just too dang hard to more that mouse around and reaching for anything other than my soda is just way too much effort to exert!
Now of course all the buttons would have tiny screens on them so you could put the related icons on them, I mean these stenciled in keys are ok, but
Hey while were at it, can we make those keys transparent, you know that just makes any device that much cooler!
For those of you out there that want a trimmed down keyboard I suggest you use a 8 key contraption. If you learn binary you would only need 7 keys to select any of 128 possible characters and use the last key as a accept key. It really wouldn't be as impressive, but if it makes things clearer for you I say go for it. As for me I'm going get started on my dream keyboard. I'll be the envy of all the other computer geeks!
cyperhpunk102/cypherpunk works (go figure). As for slash.dot/slash.dot, it may direct animosity towards /..
If you set the jumpers right caps-lock is fn+tab. But I never use it any way: M-- M-u to uppercase the last word!
why not have two sets of keys? Upper case letter above lower case letters. The shift key is the major problem for new users.
Anyhow, why do we have 10 more keys than printable characters when that includes two sets of numerics and 12 rarely used function keys. And where is the HELP key when you need it? I could make a cheaper, friendlier, more reliable keyboard with less than 100 keys.
I'm all for chucking the caps lock ... and the useless Windows keys :)
Ita erat quando hic adveni.
Best keyboard I've ever used was on an 80s Apricot semiportable/luggable (seperate 12" monitor, keyboard clips to case.) The keyboard had a row of membrane function keys at the top connected to a lo-res LCD screen. You could redefine them to macros etc and LABEL THEM! Really cool. Pity the computer was a piece of junk...
I always thought the stop A keypress was kind of funny. You can get the biggest, fastest, hulking mother of a multiprocessor Sun Server, hosting thousands of sites, routing millions of emails, and all it takes is a little STOP-A to bring the whole thing to an instant and screaching halt. At least with Sun stations, it usually only happens when you expressly hit those keys, unlike certain other architectures, running certian other operating systems ;)
Michael Gentili
- He's just some guy, you know?
I wonder: are you people mad??
Microsoft, although probably not intentionally :), has given us a wonderful gift in these keys. They provide an additional pair of modifiers, most importantly -- Meta! On real keyboards (Sun) there's a key with a diamond figure that serves that purpose; PC keyboards have had to use Alt for that purpose. I use the Windows key..well..a lot :), mainly for Emacs and for window-manager bindings because most programs ignore Meta so it doesn't interfere with them :)
That said, I don't use the right-hand pair of these things much outside of games, and I don't really use PrntScr/ScrLk/Brk much at all; they're (IMO) holdovers from DOS 3.0 when they actually had purpose :)
I think a more useful thing to work on would be eliminating the brain-dead limitations most keyboards have, that only a few keys can be pressed at once, after which further keypresses are just ignored. This is somewhat annoying, especially for games :)
Daniel
I think it could be usefull to have keyboard with two numpads instead of a keypad and a numpad. a keypad on the left would be usefull for right-hand mouse users.
Of course it would require two separate num-lock keys. Numbers could be entered with the right hand and cursor could be moved with the left hand. Or vice versa, if you prefer the other way around.
It could also be more fair to left-handed people. Today both keypad and numpad are on the right side of the keyboard.
It will of course take some time to get used to it : training separate hand movement, experimenting wich way it could be used best. However, for experience users it could be more productive; especially for spread-sheets, which require simultaneous use of both numpad and keypad. (This was the main avantage of the AT keyboard, remember)
It might require some adjustment of keyboard drivers. Probable, it would not be very hard to do so, like the change from XT to AT keyboard's. The changes would consist of an extra numlock key, and extra numeric keys. The current keyboard allready have an extra set of pointer keys.
Does anyone know where keyboards of this type can be obtained, or even where I could find a picture of one?
You might have a point, one connector! That would make my hardware problems just disapper. The floppy could be USB, the cd rom, the hard drive, DVD, memory, network card, video, sound, cpu, fans.
.8 not to figure out where this goes. If anything I think it's just way to simple, if my dad can figure out how to hook up his computer anybody can.
My god, all you would need is a power supply with one USB connector! What have we been thinking this whole time. We could make a lego computer, everything connects to each other or even better small little cubes strung together by USB wires.
Now if you think this is a good idea have obviously never taken a course or two in computer design. There is a reason this doesn't happen, it's called too much bandwidth! Things also need priorty, it would suck if your hard drive couldn't be accessed because your mouse was using the line (oops, I didn't need that research paper I was working on anyway.)
This isn't to say USB doesn't have it's place. It's a great way to plug in something without having to restart you computer (versus plugging in a sound card while the system is running, which is just a bad idea!)
The only person that pushes for a computer with only one connector (other than imac people) is my 85 year old great, great grandmother (who isn't allowed to drive so she thinks this applies to the information highway as well.) Even a novice can figure out where the keyboard goes, the printer is also pretty hard to mess up, and mice are so simple my you'd have to have a blood alchohol level of
The byline reads "By JENNIFER 8. LEE" (sic)
An alternative is to retrain your fingers to type
control-[ instead of escape; this lets you avoid
remapping. I once tried to go really hardcore
and train myself to type control-h instead of
backspace, but didn't stick with it.
"Whatever happened to fair use?"
-- Duff-Man
personally, i've never used scroll lock, and i rarely use the num pad and the home/end keys, but i'm sure someone else uses them. i write web pages, and when i need to show a client how a web page will look in a browser window, i'm very happy to have that print screen button. the pause key is irreplaceable when playing quake, and my numlock key lets me have an 8 directional keypad.. very usefull.
i'm sure that there are even some people who like those damn windoze keys.
i don't think that getting rid of keys will make anyone's life easier. really, how much does that 1/4 of an inch of deskspace mean to you?
just my 2
-fred "derF" smith
Well they must be sending something, as proprietary as it may be, through the keyboard port. So if someone with more programming skill than I was to write a hardware-level keyboard port sniffer then we'd be on the road to remapping them. Of course it's surprising that Microsoft hasn't abolished the need for proprietary and specific multimedia keyboard drivers yet.
Well, normally SysRq doesn't do much. There might have been a use for it at one time, but I've never seen it. With the newer Linux kernels (2.1.something and up), you can enable the "Magic-SysRq key". That'll allow you to do things like reset the state of the keyboard, kill all processes running on the current VT, remount all drives read-only, sync the filesystem, and, at last resort, hard boot the system. It's helped me recover from a number of potential crashes when SVGAlib programs crapped out or X dies unexpectantly.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
I assume scroll-lock functionality is addable to Emacs/Xemacs, for someone who knows what they're doing... anyone know more about it?
I'm lucky enough to have a stash of good-old IBM keyboards, and they will probably last me for eternity.
But I'm getting worried about those USB keyboards, it is likely that in a few yeas PC manufacturers will not put 'old' style PS/2 connectors on the systems anymore but only USB. And so far I have not seen a single descent USB keyboard.
Hoping that someone sees a market in producing a PS/2 keyboard USB converter. My notebook is also an IBM (ThinkPad), and to my opinion it has the best keyboard you can get on a notebook, and no stinking windows keys!
The NeXT had a power button on the keyboard, and also buttons for changing the volume.
'Course, it wouldn't be that bad if we could replace them with the "Penguin-key" and the "Gnome Foot/KDE Gear" key. Just think, Linuxmall could sell the set for a $1.50 each, or they could just come with the distros. It would also make LinuxCare (RH, etc)tech support conversations more interesting:
-NG
+--
stack. the off
+-- (Score:-1, Moderator on Power Trip)
Anyone out there know any other cool key combos for Suns? Like how to make those stupid contrast and audio volume keys work? I've tried several combos, no luck. The "sleep" key would be helpful, too...
dosent.make.sense.to.me.
Heck, I can't even get the main function of the scroll lock to work. My light will not light up! Is this covered under warranty...defective scroll lock LED?
Well, I have a Swedish layout, and AltGr is different. Using this key, you can type special characters not covered by the ordinary keys (try it in vim). Typing @, for instance is done with AltGr+2, and | I get with AltGr+. Similarily, curly and straight braces, backslash and tilde needs AltGr, to give room for the Swedish å, ä and ö.
Trust the Computer. The Computer is your friend.
Who *ever* needs the duplicate home, pgup, etc? The only reason we even have the option to turn numlock off is that early keyboards didn't have the separate keys for home and such.
How dare you Mac users tell us about your keyboards! You just received [Home] and [End] keys and probably still can't do everything with a keyboard. (If you can think of anything that requires a mouse in Windows, speak up; and Linux goes without saying.)
I remember it now, trying to word process on Macs from the 80s...the fastest way to get to the end of the line was to click...text selection was drag-only...and forget about using the [Alt] keys for anything the designers didn't feel like attaching to some [swirly_thing]-[letter] command...those were the days.
Now that mice finally have more than two buttons, why would we want to slim-down our keyboard? Oh wait, there is one type of modern computer that doesn't even have a two-button mouse... That's right, this whole article is a Mac plot!
Let's alphabetize the keys! Sure, it will twist your hands into pretzels trying to type out even simple words, but just think of how much easier it will be for newbies to learn! ;)
;)
Hey! I've got an idea! Why don't we get rid of that damned Windows key and replace it with the Tux key! =) I'd love to be able to say, "The hotkey to export your file is Tux-F7."
I do think we could move the caps lock key tho...over with scroll lock and print screen. Give a hint to all those COBOL programmers out there....
Okay, I was born back in 1981. So I discovered computers like in 1990 or so. I do not know what SysRq does. Can someone help me out here? ;)
--
Dave Brooks (db@amorphous.org)
http://www.amorphous.org
Another application that distinguishes between return and enter is MPW. Return just creates a line terminating whitespace, but enter sends the contents of the current line (or selection if the selection has length greater than zero) to the shell for execution.
If you've got a Mac that doesn't have an enter key but you want to type that character, I think you can send it via cmd-return.
Oh, go on, check out my job.
im sitting at work reading this when i notice that the right ALT key on my compaq keyboard doesn't say 'Alt' like the left one, instead it says
'Alt Gr'
anyone have a clue what that's supposed to mean?? As far as i can tell, it does the same thing as your plain vanilla flavored Alt key. (this machine has NT on it, so i KNOW from experience that it works for ctrl + alt + del)
In fact, I expect that it doesn't matter if you leave it on or off with Quake - you can always reassign the keys.
Timur Tabi
Remove "nospam_" from email address
What does SysRq do? It's apperently useless or mandatory depending who you talk to, but is that just the difference between people who don't know what it's for and people who do? Have I been missing one of the great delights of computer use because of my ignorance concerning the great 'SysRq' key?
The standard by which all PC keyboards are measured. It could stand some slight improvement :) Everyone talks about the Happy Hacker keyboard but it's far too small for desktop use and as far as I can see is just another membrane keyboard....
(adding a Meta key, mainly, and perhaps some more function keys) but nothing on the market today can beat it. (I still want a 3270 keyboard, it has 20 function keys
Bring back the almost-indestructible buckling spring technology IBM made their keyboards with!
*clicketyclicketyclicketyclick*,
Allen
Yes, they do have the MS-logo on them, but the MS keys can be extremely useful under Linux. You can re-map them to perform all sorts of nifty functions. The are great for controlling your window manager, among other things, and if you use Emacs, they can be used as Super and Hyper and Alt Keys (I keep alt as meta, due to it's convenient placement, even though it is a little confusing...).
And if, due to some horrid twist of fate, you are stuck in Windows, those keys are a Godsend if you are disinclined to point and click (winkey-r, for example pops up the run dialog...). When stuck in windows, I am able to use my mouse almost minimally, due to these keys, and in Linux I am slowly mapping them to provide similar functionality in Enlightenment. They may have the logos of our favorite software company of exceedingly questionable practices on them, but they are useful.
MetallicBurgundy
F3, F4, F6, F8-F12, PrintScreen, ScrollLock, Pause, right-shift, right-alt, right-control, and the /, *, 0/Ins, ./Del, and Enter keys on the keypad.
That's 19 out of 101 or close to what you found. (No windoze keys on my keyboard, but if there were, I'd exceed 1/5 unused in Linux.)
Home, End, and F5 are bound to special functions, F1, F2, and F7 are used only in conjunction with Alt-Control for toggling between VCs and X, and the keypad 1-9 and NumLock are used with ADOM!
You want to talk about *many* keys. Try an APL(A Programming Language) keyboard.
I love the win key, especially win+m and win+shift+m
I remap caps to ctrl, use ctrl-h. oh and dvorak layout. haven't tried control-[, but it something i'll try. I'm not sure that i'm all that much more efficent, but at least noone can type at my console :)
I don't see any reason to change the layout. It's worked this long, so messing it up would only screw up 90% of the computer users anyway. Let the newbies train themselves.
I wish I could say the same for the hp9000 console keyboards. Man, those people go out of there way to make proprietary 'quipment (HPIB?). All the keys are in fsck'ed up places (id est the escape key right about the shift key). Highly annoying... sorry, had to gripe :-)
I think IceWM uses the Windows key to bring up a menu. I have an old-style (no MS keys) keyboard, so I haven't tried it out. But, on my old-style, ctrl-ESC brings up the menu. In Windows, ctrl-ESC is the same as the windows key, so there may be a correlation.
Citizens Against Plate Tectonics
I love the enter/return differentiation. Return in ICQ or Hotline while sending messages goes to a new line, Enter sends the message on its way. Less fiddling with the mouse.
I must say that one thing the current keyboard design is hopeless at is programming. Think of C, Perl etc. The $#(){}+_"* keys all require the shift key and are often bunched up in the same part of the keyboard. It's only good if you happen to code in COBOL, and I really wouldn't want to wish that on anyone. Atleast the C64 bothered to give the * a whole key for itself.
One other thing, most I don't think the standard 101 keyboard is confusing for newbies. Most newbies at are mouse based and simply ignore any keys they don't understand.
--
Simon "who is at work and can't remember his password".
Here's a graphic of the Dvorak layout (this one's for Mac, but you get the jist of it)
To people who don't like command lines, many keys probably are redundant. Just point and click.
To use who actually like to type though, they are the key (no pun intended) componets.
The Amstrad PCW sitting on the desk next to my Linux box has the following newbie-friendly keys: UNDO; HELP; tick (coloured green); cross (coloured red); unnamed blue key; unnamed yellow key.
Older PCWs had (among other keys) COPY, CUT, PASTE, FIND/EXCHANGE, WORD forward/back, PARA forward/back.
Having functions like these on a Sun-style block at the left would be very useful.