The Top 100 Keyboard Keys of All-Time

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#100 - SCROLL LOCK



Scroll Lock really hasn't been used for years! Sometimes you might be able to get away with it in Excel, or Lotus 1-2-3, but the whole idea of scroll lock - letting the arrow keys control the display of the text on the screen, instead of cell placement - can now be accomplished with the scroll wheel on a mouse.

It is a product of an age that is so far away from us now. But would I remove mine? Of course not. That would just create a mess.

It is for that reason that the Scroll Lock is the 100th Best Keyboard Key of All-Time.

[hygraed]

I did not know Scroll Lock did that! I have been using computers for roughly 17 of my 20 years on this earth and have never had the desire to figure out exactly what it does or did.

Also I think you're going to have to be looking at Symbolics keyboards if you're going to avoid picking alphanumeric keys at random

http://www.rock-tumbler.org/symbolics.jpg

[AArdvark]

First off, I have to say that I think this list is simply brilliant.

That is, it WILL be brilliant when completed.

Secondly, since there are 101 keys on a standard keyboard, it will leave exactly ONE key off the list, I would like to place my vote for the tilde key not being on the list.

I do hope, however, that you include non-standard keys like the 'rub out' key on the above pictured keyboard. I believe that anyone having a 'rub out' key would be very successful in playing the new Mafia 2 game due out soon.
I used to have an 'any' key on my last keyboard. This was simply a replacement of the F1 key with a custom one and not some special arcane function.


THE
CAPS LOCK
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#99 - TILDE



The tilde shares space with the weird-ass apostrophe. All ~ and ` do is slow people down. Seriously, you'll be writing something and someone has thrown a ` in and it will mess up the quotes in a Word document (although, trying to do anything messes up a Word document) and cause much suffering. As for tilde, I can't think of a single thing in the world that would be negatively impacted if we just dropped it from keyboards everywhere.

Fuck you, ~!
Fuck you, `!
And fuck both your mothers.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Also I think you're going to have to be looking at Symbolics keyboards if you're going to avoid picking alphanumeric keys at random

Oh believe me, I have given this plenty of thought. There will be nothing at random.

I love that there is a "RUB OUT" key on that keyboard. If I had that thing I'd map it to just starting up ACDSee.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#98 - Q



When Strom Thurmound died, I saw one comment that stayed with me. "Today, America lost a man that it never truly needed."

I feel the same way with the letter Q. It really serves no goddamn purpose. I am particularly unenthusiastic because I spent an hour playing the game DEFCON: EVERYBODY DIES thinking that "O" zoomed in, instead of "Q".

This is because, in the world of DEFCON, there is maybe a half-pixel that separates a capital O from a capital Q. So it is out there making things worse!

It's also the subject of a recent meme, where QQ means that people are crying. I don't know how you have to tilt your monitor to see it that way, so I'll assume it's hilarious if you're into your memes.

I sort of wish that I didn't blow my load saying, "FUCK (name of key)" in the last post, because I would totally love to end this one simply saying Fuck Q!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Pinback: fuck q. hee hee!
Pinback: COMEDY SILVER!
ICJ: Sort of thanks
Pinback: without q, though, you can't type:
Pinback: /q
Pinback: /quit
Pinback: :q
Pinback: :wq
ICJ: Right, it does have that going for it.
ICJ: But ... well, ... there is an entire generation of people who wouldn't get that, these days. It is a shame.

Pinback: And the Pong FAQ would never exist. Morever, no FAQ would ever exist!
ICJ: OH FUCK
ICJ: FUCK
ICJ: I ... FUCK!
ICJ: You're right.
Pinback: A. So lonely.
Pinback: A.
Pinback: A.
Pinback: A. (sob)
Pinback: A.
ICJ: That is why it is tricky using the letter keys this early.
Pinback: A. (smacks up)
Pinback: AAaaAAaa
Pinback: AaaAAaaAa...

[Bugs]

lol comedy silver

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

Secondly, since there are 101 keys on a standard keyboard, it will leave exactly ONE key off the list, I would like to place my vote for the tilde key not being on the list.

For what it is worth, I had already made the list before your tilde comment. It wasn't a giant FUCK YOU VARK or anything.

[pinback]

Pause/Break is going to be the one that doesn't make the list.

What a horrible, horrible key.

[hygraed]

I thought pretty much every standard keyboard you can get nowadays has 104 keys. Although two of those are the same (Windows key).

Or you could go for laptop keys and have Fn or something. I actually have a key on my laptop that says AltGr, but how it differs from a regular Alt key is a mystery to me.

I also have dedicated keys for $ and €, but they don't work without whatever arcane OS extension the laptop shipped with, which is now gone since I replaced the factory install of Vista with XP.

[AArdvark]

The REAL problem with Q is that, like a fat chick, it it totally dependent on hanging out with a skinny chick to boots it's ego. The skinny letter in this case is U. You never see Q doing anything without U right next to it. In fact, Q is so totally attached to U that Q never does anything without U, except play Qix. Q Obviously has an inferiority complex and is rightfully on the low end of the list. Q probably sits home and eats chocolate cake while watching reruns of Lost on cable.


Oh, and while I'm berating keys, Tilde is a product of NAFTA and lends itself to Mexican words like 'senor' and 'habenero' without any thought of the number of American keyboards it puts out of work every year.


THE
THEY CALL IT A
NATURALIZED KEYBOARD
FOR A REASON
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#97 - PAUSE / BREAK



We have all lived in stressful times. Even someone like myself, who had no problems a couple months ago, would sometimes like a break.

Or a pause.

A pause -slash- break, if you will?? Oh, you know me too well. You really do.

When I personally press the Pause/Break key, I am really not attempting to send a "pause" key code to my computer. (Although, if I used the DOS command "type" on a text file with a lot of information in it, the "pause" part would still work.) No, I am instead looking to silently take a short, quick and wholly theoretical "pause and break" from the world. Just for a moment. I press the key and, in my mind, I have reserved a little bit of time to chill and cool off in the afterlife. My maker will tell me that I have like 540 of the things saved up, and I can redeem them right before I am judged.

"But I WILL be judged," he'll say and confirm.

I'll nod. I'll start to enjoy my saved-up breaks.

"You don't get OUT of the judging or anything, and -- " At this point, I'll cut off my maker by miming a press of the "Pause / Break" key, nestled as it always is, into the upper right-hand corner of a keyboard.

He'll bellow a quick "Ha!", and having wrestled that from God, my existence will somehow be made worthwhile. On our earthy plane, though? Pause/Break is pretty goddamn useless, and only the 97th best key of all-time.

[hygraed]

Rayman for DOS uses the Pause key as an actual Pause function.

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#96 - RIGHT SHIFT



This is a key that I don't use at all because of the way I type. And, going off JC and into the rest of the Internet, it's a key that the great majority of the populace doesn't use, because capitalizing what they type is too fucking difficult for them.

I taught myself to type: not on purpose! I was typing in lots of messages into BBSs in Rochester in the late, late 80s and early 90s and just picked it up.

So I use the left shift key for everything. The ring finger on my left hand controls it all, and that probably limits me in theory. In practice I am able to type almost 90 words a minute and in fact there was EVEN a contest about this on Caltrops a couple years ago.

The contest is much more interesting than anything else I can say. Right Shift Key? You suck!

[AArdvark]

What does the picture of the monkey and the ass have to do with right shift?



THE
SOMETHING POLITICAL
AARDVARK

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

That would be Shift, from the last Narnia book, on the right.

[AArdvark]

DOH!!!!!!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

#95 - RIGHT ALT



Here is how shitty the right alt key is: I have NOTHING to say about it, or its buddy the right control key. They almost killed this list!

Seriously, can any of you tell me the last time you went, "Phew! Glad I had right alt and right control!"?

[pinback]

Right Alt can fucking SUCK MY BALL BAG.