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 malfunction556
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Registered: 05/04/08
Posts: 235
Loc: Villa Straylight
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 Four keys on my keyboard mock me.
#8600969 - 07/06/08 02:31 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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Prt Scrn, Scroll Lock, Pause/Break, and End
I know they are carryovers from the dos age. I know they see some use in a few games.
Insert and Delete Pg Up/Pg Down have some redeeming value. Home is sort of suspect.
But apart from dos and various prompt based apps in linux, what do they do?
They aren't really in the way. But they aren't really useful either. Maybe they are spies that sense something from your right pinky. Maybe they add structural support when I beat the shit out of my keyboard.
I feel they may become an endangered species like the floppy drive. Not sure if I'm happy or sad about that.
Just an observation. I'm sure it's been said before.
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"When the government fears the people, we have democracy. When the people fear the government, we have tyranny." -- Thomas Jefferson
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 D4NK
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8600978 - 07/06/08 02:34 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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Print screen will take a screenshot of your monitor's view and put in in your clipboard so that you can paste it into a image editing type program.
I don't use any of the other mentioned keys.
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Moderation is key
"There is no god higher than truth."
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malfunction556
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Posts: 235
Loc: Villa Straylight
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: D4NK]
#8600982 - 07/06/08 02:35 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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oh yeah... duh, I forgot about that little feature of print screen...
which is odd because if someone at work left their station unlocked, we would do the trick where ya snap a shot of their desktop, save it to a gif, then create a folder named like "a" or something. Then take all of their desktop shortcuts, dump them into the "a" folder, then replace their desktop with the screenshot. They always take a few minutes to realize what is going on when they try to click a desktop "icon". At least the dumb ones do. I put the original shortcuts in a folder, cuz I didn't really wanna be a dick and just delete them. People with a shitload of desktop icons drive me nuts!
Edited by malfunction556 (07/06/08 02:40 PM)
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coda
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8600985 - 07/06/08 02:37 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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print screen will take a snap shot of what you see on your monitor. Alt + print screen will take a picture of the currently selected window.
Insert will allow you type over text that's already there. So instead of pushing the text to the right like it normally does, everything you type will replace the letters to the right of your cursor.
Page up and down has several functions. It moves you from page to page in a word doc, it will scroll down your browser windows for you, etc.
Home returns you to the beginning of a line of text, end does the opposite.
I don't have scroll lock on my keyboard, i think they did away with it, that really has no windows application.
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To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe. . . .
-JG
 
Don't fuck with the laughing jesus.
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Ferris
PsychedelicJourneyman
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Posts: 6,954
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: D4NK]
#8600988 - 07/06/08 02:37 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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pg up, pg down can be used for scrolling
home and end are good for scrolling and moving around in text boxes
insert toggles whether when you type in the middle of a sentence, whether it just adds, or adds and replaced
there are tons more uses to the keys too
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The life of American Vagabonds
To live is the rarest thing in the world. Most people exist, that is all.
-Oscar Wilde
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Vanguard
Registered: 09/30/05
Posts: 920
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8600992 - 07/06/08 02:39 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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I still use home and end quite a bit
also shift and arrow keys to highlite
text
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-=Check my Gallery=-
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Shins
funguy
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8601004 - 07/06/08 02:42 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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they're actually all pretty useful if you know what they do, let me break it down;
"prt scrn" stands for "print screen" and it will take a capture of your entire screen and save it to the clipboard so you can paste it into photoshop or whatever later!
scroll lock is pretty useless now. it used to swick the arrow keys from moving the cursor to scolling a page.
pause/break: the only thing i could get this to do is pause my computer when it starts up so that i can read all that quick stuff that flashes by.
home and end will scroll you to the top of a page, and the end of a page respectively
insert will make you write over already typed characters when you are typing in the middle of a sentence (instead of moving them to the right)
im pretty sure not all the keys work all the time depending on what programs you are running at the time.
im a dork dork dork dork dork  
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I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
-Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the REVOLUTION.
-Benjamin Franklin
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malfunction556
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Posts: 235
Loc: Villa Straylight
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: Vanguard]
#8601012 - 07/06/08 02:44 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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ok, ok, ok... I guess folks DO use insert/delete/home/end much more than I do. I use pg up/dn mainly in pdf's.
To me, delete is part of the 3 finger salute, and occasionally used to delete large sections of highlighted text.
So we can narrow this to scroll lock and pause/break being largely worthless.
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coda
Banjo Goiter
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8601015 - 07/06/08 02:46 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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yah, pause break was probably used more in DOS programs that spit out a lot of data, this way you could stop the text from scrolling and read.
Been a while though.
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To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe. . . .
-JG
Don't fuck with the laughing jesus.
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malfunction556
Twitterpated Bum
Registered: 05/04/08
Posts: 235
Loc: Villa Straylight
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: coda]
#8601043 - 07/06/08 02:54 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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well, I do remember that it had SOME function in OS/2. A couple of years ago, I worked for a company that supported a major banking firm that used OS/2 simply because it was cheaper to run an emulator that translated OS/2 to XP. You should have seen the fucked up code that was in some of those programs. Over the decades, various programmers would add and delete sections of the code. Spaghetti anyone?
Honestly, though OS/2 was reliable (in it's UN-emulated form).
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supra
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8601053 - 07/06/08 02:57 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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the 'window' key + pause/break is a shortcut into system properties, I use it all the time.
peace
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Shins
funguy
Registered: 09/15/04
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: supra]
#8601078 - 07/06/08 03:04 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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i remember pause/break had some use with oldschool fax modems too i think
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I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around [the banks] will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.
-Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826)
The refusal of King George III to allow the colonies to operate an honest money system, which freed the ordinary man from the clutches of the money manipulators was probably the prime cause of the REVOLUTION.
-Benjamin Franklin
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coda
Banjo Goiter
Registered: 03/20/01
Posts: 8,452
Last seen: 17 hours, 31 minutes
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: supra]
#8601079 - 07/06/08 03:04 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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wow, didn't know that! I used to just do the ol right click properties deal.
I'm amazed people use OS/2 these days.
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To get really high is to forget yourself. And to forget yourself is to see everything else. And to see everything else is to become an understanding molecule in evolution, a conscious tool of the universe. And I think every human being should be a conscious tool of the universe. . . .
-JG
Don't fuck with the laughing jesus.
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malfunction556
Twitterpated Bum
Registered: 05/04/08
Posts: 235
Loc: Villa Straylight
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: coda]
#8601104 - 07/06/08 03:12 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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well, it's been three years since I worked there, and all of the tellers and managers hate OS/2. I would be surprised if they still use it.
Cool tip about windows key/pause break. Thx!
As a side note, we all know that in ctrl-c the 'c' stands for "copy".
So how did they choose ctrl-v for "Paste"?
voila
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supra
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8601127 - 07/06/08 03:21 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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because they are very close to each other, and in most use cases, the user will paste directly after a copy. I usually do it without ever letting go of the ctrl key.
it would be a pain to have to switch to the other side of the keyboard.
peace
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zouden
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8601307 - 07/06/08 04:26 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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Scroll lock is useful in Excel and Milkdrop (winamp visualisation)
How could you not use the End key??!?! Home and End are great, shame they don't work properly in Mac OS X (but there's a hack to get them working).
The most useless key by far is SysRq. It doesn't even generate a scancode.
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Wave upon wave of demented avengers
Marched cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
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D4NK
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: supra]
#8601682 - 07/06/08 06:08 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
supra said:
the 'window' key + pause/break is a shortcut into system properties, I use it all the time.
peace
That's awesome. Thanks.
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Moderation is key
"There is no god higher than truth."
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Konnrade
↑↑↓↓<--><-->BA
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: malfunction556]
#8601922 - 07/06/08 07:17 PM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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What perplexes me is that my prt scr key has, written below that, "sys rq"... the hell is that?
... it's staring at me 
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I find your lack of faith disturbing
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zouden
Neuroscientist
Registered: 11/12/07
Posts: 3,346
Loc: Australia
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: Konnrade]
#8602885 - 07/07/08 01:00 AM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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As I said above, SysRq is the most useless key of all because it's not even plugged in. It was going to be used for a multitasking version of DOS that never materialised.
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Wave upon wave of demented avengers
Marched cheerfully out of obscurity into the dream
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Seuss
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Re: Four keys on my keyboard mock me. [Re: zouden]
#8603157 - 07/07/08 04:59 AM (4 months, 27 days ago) |
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Quote:
As I said above, SysRq is the most useless key of all because it's not even plugged in. It was going to be used for a multitasking version of DOS that never materialised.
Unfortunately, saying it twice does not make it any more correct. 
SysRq is short for System Request and was used on old IBM 3270 terminals that were connected to mainframes. The key typically isn't used on PCs.
I don't know what you mean by "not even plugged in". The key generates a scancode of 0x64b7 and raises int 9 when pressed. The default BIOS int 9 handler ignores the scancode, simply clearing the IRQ and returning.
> i remember pause/break had some use with oldschool fax modems too i think
Yep, originally used to send a "break" on modems... goes clear back to the days of teletype machines!
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Just another spore in the wind.
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