What's A 'Scroll Lock' And Why Is It On My Keyboard? 866
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 ..."
scroll lock (Score:1, Interesting)
MS Office scroll lock peeve (Score:3, Interesting)
I'll be reading a document using the scroll wheel on my mouse, get tired of that particular method then switch to using the arrow key, which then jumps the view to the current cursor position, which is by now miles away from where I was reading.
Not exactly sure I'd remember to turn on Scroll Lock in the first place, but for read-only documents it might be a good default.
--H
Mad Props (Score:4, Interesting)
Or can anyone explain (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:The real question is (Score:1, Interesting)
I use it for usefull things... (Score:4, Interesting)
Like I'll believe it has a use other than those...pfft.
Uses for AltGr (Score:4, Interesting)
AltGr ("alternate graphic," although it should really be "alternate glyph") is used for entering extended characters beyond what the standard keyboard layout supports. It's equivalent to the X keysym Mode_switch. When you use the "US International" keyboard layout in Windows, the right Alt key becomes AltGr, which when pressed along with other keys produces various extended characters, including accented letters, special punctuation marks, and other fancy stuff without having to type in the ASCII value on the numeric keypad while holding the Alt key. On non-US keyboards, like the ISO Spanish keyboard on my Mac, some keys have extra characters printed on the key caps, indicating which character they generate while pressing AltGr.
Re:real application! (Score:5, Interesting)
Wrong! (Score:4, Interesting)
The Scroll Lock key was a vestige of the old IBM word processor systems. It was used to lock the cursor in place, and the up and down arrow keys scrolled the entire screen, leaving the cursor locked. It should have been called "cursor lock."
The article is riddled with errors. For example, una says the Macintosh extended keyboards have a scroll lock key. It does not.
15 fnc, 4 cmd, 9 movement, and 5 misc keys (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact the alt/option key is really just a replacement for the escape key, except one has to be dexterous enough to hold two keys down at once to use it.
And lets not even get started with delete/backspace key and the del key.
Just looking at my keyboard, which has as nearly as many function/command keys as character keys, I wonder if bloat stated with the keyboard and expanded into the software. I mean it looks cool and hi tech and all, but who needs to look hi tech in the 21st century?
Re:More interesting question migth be... (Score:3, Interesting)
FreeBSD : Run sysinstall and you can select a keymap with caps as a ctrl.
Linux : you can do it at the "KDE" level, or level of X, but the most reliable method is to just use
echo 'keycode 58 = Control' | loadkeys
at bootup
Win 9x : I believe you can just use they keymap util with powertools
Win2k (xp?) : you have to fuck with the registry. I can't recall how I did it, but I got it to work and I just run a regestry import now (you can find articles on how to do it). Looks like this.
[HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlS
"Scancode Map"=hex:00,00,00,00,00,00,00,00,02,00,00,00,1d,0
(run at own risk, may destroy your computer)
Useful keys (Score:1, Interesting)
And as a graphic designer, Print Screen gets a lot of use. Alt-Print Screen copies a screenshot of just the active window to the clipboard. Useful for taking screenshots of websites, videos, etc.
Now, the one that really annoys me is this "Power" key that some PC keyboards have. I hit this once while working in Win2000 and the computer immediately shut off, without a prompt or anything. I lost 2 hours of work.
That Windows key is really a blemish.
Paul
Re:The ` key (Score:1, Interesting)
I have a bad habit of switching between english (US) and French keyboard to use the accent.
I prefer the english layout (when programming and english writing) but sometime I have to write in french and when I need to do it properly, I write the accents. But getting the accent on the English keyboard isn't the easiest so I constantly switch between french when I need to enter a accent letter.
On a different note...
Wasn't there something on slashdot recently about CTRL-ALT-DELETE.
Yes, this is one of the stupid combination to use for login in a computer. Why don't they replace the not so useful scroll lock with a Login key?
SysRq (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:Alt -escape (Score:5, Interesting)
Not sure if that is was a Win95 bug, a Duke bug or what. However, clearly it is possible to detect the difference between the two keys.
Hmmm, that might have been Ctl-Esc, but I remember the bug in Duke was like that.
Kirby
Re:Hmm... (Score:3, Interesting)
The thing actually had an [Any] key...it was just an extra Enter key.
Re:15 fnc, 4 cmd, 9 movement, and 5 misc keys (Score:5, Interesting)
Yeah, that's right. Wanna know what happens when you type Hyper-Super-Meta-Control-Symbol-Shift-Square? So do I...
See also space-cadet keyboard [faqs.org].
Re:Mirrors (Score:2, Interesting)
Thus making it less accessible than just a slashdotted server. Thanks.
Re:Scroll lock is useful in Linux terminals (Score:3, Interesting)
My KVM switch uses Scroll Lock to switch hosts, but, often this confuses my terminals, sometimes to the point where I must do mad-bomber techniques to reset the keyboard, and sometimes badly enough that I've chosen to reboot.
Is there a way to disable the scroll lock key at the keyboard driver level?
Re:Windows Key (Score:2, Interesting)
"Windows E + M" is "Minimize all." Yes, there is a difference. The first will put everything in the background, while the second will only minimize windows that have the standard "minimize" control. Experiement with winamp open...
True story (Score:5, Interesting)
At one point in the inspection, the technician had to monitor the machine from a boot-up state, and so he rebooted the machine. The only problem was, the machine didn't come back up. Instead, it hung early in the boot process, leaving the distinct impression on the observers that the technician had hosed up a perfectly good -- and very expensive -- minicomputer.
Apparently, the same impression was left on the technician, because he started sweating. A lot. He tried rebooting the machine again, obviously unsure of what the hell he had done to land in his present, miserable condition and just as obviously wanting desperately to be released from it. The machine hung up again. More sweat. Another attempt. Same thing: Hang. Then he opened the case and peered inside. He was clearly grasping at straws. The sweat started to bead on his forehead.
Eventually, after about fifteen minutes of increasingly distressing diagnostic procedures, consulting the LEDs, and hand wringing, he gave up: "You've got a bad motherboard. I'll have to call in for a swap." He half ran away from the uncomfortable scene to make his phone call.
While he was gone, the sysadmin busted out laughing. Then he pointed at the keyboard on the console VT320. The Scroll Lock LED was lit. The sysadmin said that the technician must have hit it earlier and never took it off before rebooting. When the kernel tried to send boot-up messages to the console, the console wouldn't accept them, and so the kernel blocked, waiting for the Scroll Lock to be released!
A few minutes later, the technician returned, looking only a bit less nervous. In his best it's-under-control voice: "Yeah, we'll have that new board out right away. No problem." The sysadmin's reply: "Great! I'm sure glad we have the preventative-maintenance contract, because I bet those boards are plenty expensive. I'd hate to pick up the tab for one of them." After a few precious moments of letting that thought sink in, the sysadmin "noticed" the scroll-lock situation: "Hey, isn't the scroll lock on? Let's just see what happens if I ..." He then tapped the keyboard.
And the Vax booted right up.
True.
Re:True story (Score:3, Interesting)
We have had our AIX box hanging during a weekly nightly reboot because someone switched off the console terminal.
Indeed it can leave you puzzled for a while, especially as this console is rarely used, and operators normally use network connections to access the machine.
The internet has ruined my moral values! (Score:2, Interesting)
I just thought he should sort them into subdirectories like I do.
Re:Alt Graph on Sun-boxen ... (Score:4, Interesting)
Most PC keyboards outside of the US have the Alt Graph (or Alt Gr) key. It's used to access all kinds of international characters. On my keyboard (I'm in the Netherlands), I can type the following characters with it: 1/41/23/4''xaae(R)uuiooaBdoae(C)nc
When I typed it, there were 36 special characters (accented characters, the Euro sign and other currency signs, international alphabet and punctuation characters, etc.) following that colon, I'm curious to see how many of them will survive Slashdot's US-centric character handling code...
Re:Alt Graph on Sun-boxen ... (Score:2, Interesting)
Wow, that's pretty sad. None of them survived! Not a single one! Slashdot displays typical American arrogance and ignorance by discarding accents and changing characters to alternatives that are not equivalent or just plain wrong.
I was going to include a table here showing what some of the worst mistakes Slashdot makes are (I mean, changing a ringel-S, which is an alternative to a double S, to a B?!?!), but it wouldn't pass the lameness filter! It told me to "use fewer 'junk' characters"! So accents, currency signs, international punctuation, etc. are considered "lame" and "junk" by Slashdot?! I mean, how fucking arrogant can you get!
Re:True story (Score:2, Interesting)
Believe it or no, but these boxes are still around... The software that run on them was never ported to *nix. Right now, I have to edit some files over such a machine/OS but I am connected to it from a sun where none of these keys exist... And it's really a pain
Re:True story (Score:2, Interesting)
Often times, although probably less now than in the past, these console terminals would dump console input/output to an attached printer. Sort of a permanent record, especially if something really bad(tm) happened and killed the machine (you could see the last few lines of output on the printout).
Re:real application! (Score:1, Interesting)