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 ..."

More interesting question migth be...

[eb4x]

Who's the smartass that switched "Caps Lock" and "Ctrl" keys?

It's just another key...

[Anonymous Coward]

To clean out after you keyboard gets too sticky from all that protein.

Re:The real question is

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you never played Civilization.

Re:Losing the Insert key

[thecampbeln]

This is the one key that I ALWAYS remove from my keyboards (which always thrills the crap out of my superiors - "What happened to your keyboard?!"). Anyway, the Insert is always gone from my keyboards, generally along with the capslock (though I do occasionally jab the sensor to turn it on and off, but I hate hitting it accidentally - stupid advanced hunt-n-peck method! ;). I've always wondered about the Scroll Lock key... never had a reason to remove it (as it doesn't piss me off), but always wondered =)

What keys do you "liberate" from your keyboards?

Re:real application!

[Darren.Moffat]

Linux - no it is a kernel and doesn't have a copy buffer ;-)

Serious though, it depends on which distribution you use and what bits you have installed.

WindowMaker comes with a command to do this.

Openwindows (the XView stuff not the OLIT stuff) on SunOS came with a util to do this.

Standard MIT X Windows also comes with a cut and paste history which lets you "go both ways" between files and the "cut buffer(s)".

Re:Scroll lock is useful in Linux terminals

[Yaztromo]

Many people think that scroll lock is now useless, except in Microsoft Excel, but it does have a much more useful purpose, at least in Linux and perhaps BSD.

It's also used in Lotus Notes for its original purpose. The last company I worked for used Notes as its groupware client, and it once took me 5 minutes to figure out why I couldn't scroll through my list of inbox e-mail messages without the entire list moving up and down, not having noticed that the "Scroll Lock" light was on :).

Yaz.

Re:Fan of Michael Moorcock I presume?

[quinkin]

Hence the (sic)...

Q.

Re:Windows Key

[Com2Kid]

This is one of my major "wow that is a PITA" points about Linux.

WHERE ARE MY HOTKEYS???

Ok Ok I know that they are likely SOMEWHERE in there, but, umm. . . .

1. Windowkey-r Run
   
2. Windowkey-s Search
   
3. Windowkey-e Explorer / Web Browser (integration DOES Kick ass thankyousoverymuch)
   
4. Windowkey-d Show desktop (EXTREMLY useful!)
   
5. Windowkey-Pause/break System Properties
   

Combinded with the excellent command, directory, and file completation that Windows has built into all of its dialog boxes, help make the GUI as great as it is.

Win2K rocks for a reason folks, it may not be GPL, it may not be Free (beer OR speech), but it sure kicks ass from the usability perspective of an end-user.

Re:real application!

[Feztaa]

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

The only time I can see this being useful is if your terminal app is too crippled to allow you to copy and paste natively.

So, this isn't a great innovative feature, it's a clever workaround for some other fundamental brain-damage.

Re:real application!

[richie2000]

Linux?