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

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

real application!

[Wakkow]

How you know it's TRUE Straight Dope:

"In command-line environments such as DOS, the pipe symbol can add functionality to a DOS command. The way I most frequently use it is when doing a directory listing (DIR) on a large directory with hundreds of files. Say I type "DIR" at the command prompt like so:

C:\Una\Lesbian Porn>DIR

. . . then the 22,000 files in that directory scroll past so fast I can't see their names. However, if I apply the pipe function at the command prompt like this:

C:\Una\Lesbian Porn>DIR | more

. . . then the display will show me one screen of files at a time, with a "More" at the bottom. To display the next screen of files, I hit any key to continue, until all of the files in the directory have been listed (or I break, by pressing Ctrl-C). This is similar to using the "/p" modifier, such as "DIR /p," to display directory information a page at a time."

Not only do they explain it, but give a real life situation where it'd be useful! It's always hard to sort through 22,000 lesbian porn pics.

Windows Key

[Empty_One]

I've been wondering the same thing about my windows key.

Scroll Lock huh?

[Anonymous Coward]

I belive it has something to do with locking the scroll....

An old one

[Anonymous Coward]

<> !*''#
^"`$$-
!*=@$_
%*<> ~#4
&[]../
|{,,SYSTEM HALTED

Waka waka bang splat tick tick hash,
Caret quote back-tick dollar dollar dash,
Bang splat equal at dollar under-score,
Percent splat waka waka tilde number four,
Ampersand bracket bracket dot dot slash,
Vertical-bar curly-bracket comma comma CRASH.

Scroll Lock Key

[ArkiMage]

Very handy key.. I press it twice and my Linksys KVM switches to the other system. Does it do something else?

Props!

[Anonymous Coward]

Whenever my lab partner does something good, I hit the props key. Sun machines are cool like that.

The Light

[metadatay]

Something has to turn the Scroll Lock light on and off.

Re:Windows Key

[Anonymous Coward]

it was added so that when you miss the alt or ctrl key you dont hurt your finger!

window key

[deputydink]

I'm still trying to figure out what this fucking window keys does.

oh... nevermind.

Re:An old one

[Vengie]

^<@<.@*
}"_# |
-@$&/_%
!( @|=>
;`+$?^?
,#"~|)^G

hat less at less point at star
backbrace double base pound space bar
dash at cash and slash base rate
wow open tab at bar is great
semi backquote plus cash huh DEL
comma pound double tilde bar close BEL

Outstanding, but...

[Infernon]

This is all very interesting, but it still doesn't tell me anything about where the 'Any' key is...

Re:real application!

[r_glen]

Sorting through them is easy... it's VIEWING them in DOS that gets tricky.

Re:Or can anyone explain

[grolschie]

WHATISTHISCAPSLOCKKEYFOR?

It's for annoying the crap out of email recipients and newsgroup readers - of course.

Re:The ` key

[vanza]

Damn Slashdot, it filtered the accents on "tres" and "frequemment".

Re:An old one

[SeanTobin]

For about 10 seconds, I thought that was the greatest thing I had ever seen. Then I noticed it didn't begin with #!/usr/bin/perl and was bummed :(

Re:Losing the Insert key

[the_other_one]

You are not using a modern keyboard.

You are using a Modern Art keyboard.

We used to use backtick an tilde as delimiters in proprietary text storage and parsing routines. Nobody will these when entering text into a program. Well at least that was the theory at design time.

Re:The real question is

[ottothecow]

You can sue the arrows to move the pointer

What has this world come to...now you have to call your lawyer and start sueing things just to move your pointer...wtf

Here's an idea

[OldTome]

for a cutting edge super user friendly OS: Make the Print Screen key actually work and PRINT THE FREAKIN' SCREEN!

Re:real application!

[treat]

Also, in WinXP or higher, you can pipe text into the copy buffer. I use this all the time.

Can Linux do this? If not, Windows is better than Linux.

Windows Key-BKOD.

[Anonymous Coward]

"I've been wondering the same thing about my windows key."

It makes Windows bluescreen, STOP HITTING IT!!!

Re:real application!

[NanoGator]

"Can Linux do this?"

No, it requires a mouse.

Alt-Gr (as seen on lusenet)

[StandardDeviant]

Alt-Gr, useful when that regular "Grrrrrrrr!" just isn't enough.

(Alt-Gr key example [www.ucd.ie] (in this case being illustrated as part of a key combo to produce the Euro symbol))

Re:scroll lock

[RevDobbs]

up, down, and ``straight to eleven''.

Re:real application!

[Anonvmous Coward]

heheh. Man I hope the mods are in good humor today.

Obligatory...

[jdreed1024]

Homer:

[reading screen] "To Start Press Any Key". Where's the ANY key? I see Esk ["ESC"], Catarl ["CTRL"], and Pig-Up ["PGUP"]. There doesn't seem to be any ANY key. Woo! All this computer hacking is making me thirsty. I think I'll order a TAB. [presses TAB key] Awp...no time for that now, the computer's starting.

Blatanly stolen from Simpsons episode 3f05.

I can't find

[Anonymous Coward]

The registration key. All my software keeps asking me for it...

nigerians

[goombah99]

THe capslock key is wired on onall nigerian keyboards by law.

Re:Hmm...

[telstar]

"They still haven't told me what the 'any key' does"

• Yes they have. [compaq.com]
  

For all the NetAdmins out there...

[kobukson]

at my lab, we administer cisco routers using a console connection to a pc via hyperterminal. what you see in the screen is a scrolling-text, command prompt environment. sometimes, the keyboard gets bumped around and the scroll-lock button gets accidently pressed.

my co-worker, in all the years that he's been working here, never seems to learn this.

i'd be sitting at my desk, trying to do more important stuff (like reading /.), when i'd hear him yell out:

"there's something wrong with this router! come check it out..."

me: "is the scroll-lock on?"

few seconds later...

"oh."

Re:Losing the Insert key

[wampus]

It would REALLY suck to lose the tilde and have to type $HOME all the time.

Re:Alt -escape

[xanadu-xtroot.com]

I think the windows key is just alt-esc or control esc or some such thing.

You're right. The "Windows Key" (AKA Start Button) is CTRL+ESC. The "right-click" is SHIFT+F10. The "Task Manager" is CTRL+SHIFT+ESC. The "Boot a Real OS" is CTRL+ALT+DEL.

Re:An old one

[Anonymous Coward]

It's funny because they're incredible, incredible dorks.

Re:real application!

[TheRealSlimShady]

Surely if it's lesbian porn theres no head, only lots of tail?

Re:Outstanding, but...

[DCowern]

Look no further, Compaq has the answer. [compaq.com]

Re:The ` key

[benjamindees]

The first time I read that, I thought that by 'our languages' you meant bash. Time to go outside.

Re:Mad Props

[Anonymous Coward]

It's been years, man, let it go. It was an Intro to C program, it's not like it was your thesis or anything. How long did it take you to rewrite the whole thing, five minutes or ten?

Re:Or can anyone explain

[Anonymous Coward]

First, let me show you this wonderful space bar key!

Re:Windows Key

[Anonymous Coward]

Except when you run some "enhanced" application like WinAmp or let's say MS Office, where the app takes precedence and Ctrl+Alt+M is suddenly "high-light, make the text blue, and spell check for Japanese".

Re:Losing the Insert key

[the_mad_poster]

I dont have an key. I dont understand whats up with people on Slashdot always griping about my typing and grammar. Its perfectly acceptable. Theres nothing wrong with it. Whatever, I just dont get it.

Re:Losing the Insert key

[Burdell]

What's next to your home key?

My car key, my office key, my desk key, ...

you're so clever

[Anonymous Coward]

I especially enjoyed how you mangle the language, grammar, and punctuation while trying to argue against twisting our language. Please crawl back into your troll-hole.

As a short list:
1. Repeated extensive capitalization as an indication of vocal volume.
2. Misspelling of "damnit"
3. Incomplete sentences.
4. Use of "Mod" as a verb. (the most similar to the slang you criticize so heavily)

Note that our language is completely jacked already-- to paraphrase your example:

It's BOXEN, goddamnit! OXEN! SHEEP! THIEVES! WOMEN! CHILDREN! MICE! BARRACKS! DICE! ALUMNI! VORTICES! AUTOMATA!

Look! It's a whole slew of plurals that don't follow any consistent rules! It's pretty "twisted" already. Besides, I like "boxen."

Re:The Light

[Thing 1]

That's hilarious. Reminds me of tripping in college...

Pointing at radio tower with blinking red light: "What's that tower for?"

"They built it to warn planes."

Re: Windows Key

[CognitiveFusion]

We have a old programmer at work that uses keyboard macros, and frequently uses the windows key to access the start menu and use the key macros (win + e: explorer; win + r: run prompt; etc.) One day another co-worker snuck into his office during lunch and remapped the windows key to reboot every time he hit it. This had the unfortunate side effect of producing a loud explitive every 10-15 minutes.

Re:Alt -escape

[sjwt]

wow,
just tryed that real OS trick,
and blow me down with a feather
XP is a real OS after all.

Re:real application!

[Siriaan]

It's always hard to sort through 22,000 lesbian porn pics.

You're new here, aren't you?

The Straight Dope

[devphil]

is extremely knowledgeable and cosmopolitan. No urban legends, actual investigation, proper journalistic techniques. Believe me, /. had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Re:real application!

[pebs]

Uh, no.. We're talking about unmounting drives that are in use here. So try it:

# umount /dev/hda1
umount: /: device is busy
umount: /: device is busy

so maybe umount -f /dev/hda1 will do the trick (forces unmount). So lets try it:

# umount -f /dev/hda1
umount2: Device or resource busy
umount: /dev/hda1: not mounted
umount: /: Illegal seek
umount2: Device or resource busy
umount: /: device is busy

Nope. Looks like this is a Windows-only feature. I guess Windows must be the more powerful OS...

Re:An old one

[Absoluttt]

How about the obligatory porno text!
C:

:
###
See colon, enter colon, pound pound pound!

Any Key

[Voiceve]

But where is the any key?

Re:real application!

[Anonymous Coward]

LOLLERSKATEZ

Re:The real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

Well the num pad is there for contingency. That is if the arrow keys fails, or the top row numbers doesn?t work anymore, you can still carry on typing those all important numbers. Imagine for example a day as a flight controller, and you notice two airplanes on the same altitude and opposite course, 10 seconds from hitting each other. Then you are about to email the new course to one of the airplanes, but suddenly realizing that the top number keys are not working. The day before the sysop removed the number keyboard, because of redundancy. What do you do????

No, - my fellow IT-humans! Don?t take away the number keyboard! Better yet, - bring a backup set for all keys on the board.

What do you think?

Re:but

[VanillaCoke420]

A scroll wheel then?

Re:Scroll Lock Key

[dekashizl]

"Does it do something else?" It PAINS me to hear this ignorant question, but recognizing the lack of spiritual context in our society now, allow me to educate our loyal readership a bit, and perhaps open some eyes up to THE TRUTH.

Many thousands of years ago, a new technology brought forth rampant unapproved duplication of holy scrolls. Fearing their power was slipping out of their grip, the religious leadership began a campaign of identifying and stoning to death the worst offenders.

When this campaign backfired, causing people to buy even less scrolls than before, they changed their approach by embedding actual physical protection on scrolls they sold, in an attempt to reduce the illegal duplication and maintain control over distribution.

These "scroll locks" were placed on all scrolls manufactured, and indeed served to protect their power for several decades. But, eventually they were cracked, for it was only a matter of time, and scrolls and their content became free.

The world changed for the better, and people vowed never to let anything like that happen again. As we say now "when pigs fly", they too saw the improbability of ever allowing such a thing to happen again. "Yeah, maybe 2000 years after the Son of God walks the earth, then we'll let this happen again, but not before that!" laughed Haramud Ha'abbahakbar.

And so it was inscribed in many religious texts (rough translation) "And bind upon your keyboards always a key named 'Scroll Lock' so that you may be reminded daily of the plight caused by this wretched behavior of control, and that you may take your child upon your lap and tell him of the horrors forced upon his ancestors in the time when individual men were treated as slaves."

It saddens me that this history is forgotten, and all we can think about is scrolling a spreadsheet or switching monitors. To think that people actually would remove this key frightens me and foretells of a coming apocalypse, as people have foresaken their history and are doomed to repeat it.

Re:Windows Key

[Anonymous Coward]

Win+M - Minimize pr0n, the boss is around

Wouldn't it make more sense with Win+X for right handed and Win+. for left handed people.