Talk:Computer keyboard

In countries speaking other Latin alphabet languages, small variations on QWERTY can be found; the Brazillian Portuguese and Spanish keyboard layouts, for example, while having enough differences to disrupt a QWERTY typist's fluency, have many more keys in common with QWERTY than not.

I should note this experience is based entirely on Microsoft Windows. I have used Spanish layout keyboards in Paraguay, and I sometimes use Windows' Brazillian Portuguese layout to type things on my copy of Windows at home. Perhaps there are other Spanish layouts I'm not aware of. I have seen a Portuguese Portuguese keyboard, and it also looked similar. -- Ryguasu

Would be nice to have something about Dvorak keyboards...

The top picture of a standard American keyboard layout is for Windows only. Would like to have an Apple keyboard layout on this page please. --Neonblue2

I want the UK Amiga keyboard layout there too or I'll wage holy war!

Seriously, point taken (I do live in the UK, but don't use the Amiga much really), but there's an article on keyboard layouts (keyboard layout) elsewhere, and that picture is only (or should only) be an example of a 'typical' keyboard layout to illustrate a point. Perhaps it could be qualified in some way, though.

Fourohfour 11:32, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

The following statement: "In English speaking countries, the IBM PC keyboard with the QWERTY layout is nearly universal."

is false, as UK readers will no doubt attest. So I killed it, and removed some other stuff WRT "keyboard layouts" better suited to that page.

Too much in other articles

Someone looking for certain info on keyboards would have to look through the see also section for info about keyboards for information on keyboard layouts. I feel that information about various aspects on the keyboard need to be here, with a link to the main article, so that all of the basic info about keyboards is in one place. Reub2000 07:10, 30 Mar 2005 (UTC)

Happy Hacking keyboards

What would be a good objective name and definition for the happy hacking keyboard link?

I ended up in writing... "Happy Hacking keyboards, appreciated among geeks"

I was aware that this maybe wasn't the best expression and maybe not even objective enought, but it was the best I could come up with.

In 22:44, 8 May 2005 edit, Omegatron changed it to ... "Happy Hacking keyboards, a minimalistic keyboard designed for hackers"

I think this is even worse as it labels the keyboard to hackers. Hacker is a bad word anyway because it has a million meanings and I'm sure that an average wikipedia reader would not understand it, instead she would go blaming happy hacking keyboard users of being a computer criminal. "minimalistic" is also a very inaccurate and misleading expression.

Please give your opinnion on this. --Easyas12c 16:23, 10 May 2005 (UTC)

Names of keys

I would like to read about the names of the keys. For example. what are the names ~ @ # % ^ & { }?

Keys or characters? What is name of the key labelled "A". Is it "A"-key?

I have I, i, PSc and SRq under the same key with different meta keys.

Is this then "I/i/PSc/SRq"-key. I think most keys don't have names.

How about "return" and "enter" these are maybe names for the keys, but they are often misused. Return is called "enter" so often that I've even seen keyboards with both keys having label "enter" this is bad because it adds confusion. Imagine that some people design and manufacture keyboards and not even they know what the names are.

We should also write about the history. Starting with Commodore 64-, Amiga- and terminal-keyboards.

So shortly. Yes I agree with you. This should be discussed and documented.

I welcome everyone to join in further discussion. --Easyas12c 18:13, 22 May 2005 (UTC)

From left to right: tilde, at sign, number/pound sign, percent sign, hat, ampersand, left curly bracket, right curly bracket, question mark. : ) For reference, see the article on punctuation.

Other observations: the tilde shares space with the backtick (`) key, which here seems to be called a prime. The "PSc" key is also known as the "Print screen" key, and it still works today in Windows XP (and all other versions of Windows, of course).

I've taken to calling # `Octothorpe'. This link has some interesting info.

Actually, I think the proper name for '^' is 'caret'.

{ } are also known as 'braces'. In cases where ( ) (or 'parentheses') are referred to as 'brackets', [ ] can be referred to as 'square brackets'.

Keyboard without irrelevant keys

Is this really notable? I mean, how many people do this? Is there a reference?

 Some users find some keys (...) more disturbing than useful.

This doesn't seem very encyclopedic to me. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 21:09, 19 Jun 2005 (UTC)

If nobody objects to this in the next few days or so, I will remove this section. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 13:15, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)

I also want to see it removed. Teklund 15:24, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Since there has been no objections. I have removed this. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 12:30, Jun 26, 2005 (UTC)

Useful User Info

Is it appropriate to add a section on why one might want to use a particular type of keyboard? I just had to explain to my mother-in-law why wireless keyboards are not something to get just for their looks. It seems that many people might benefit from info like this...

You might be on shaky ground. It sounds like original research to me. But if you can cite sources, I don't see any reasons why not. --JiFish(Talk/Contrib) 14:24, August 4, 2005 (UTC)

48- vs 47-keys

Ignoring the function keys and alt and spacebar and numeric keypads and all that, there seem to be two major keyboard variants. One, used in the US, has the grave-tilde key next to the 1-! key; the other moves that key down to next to z, and has a §-± key next to the 1-! key. Anyone know what the story on this is? It's been a "feature" of Apple keyboards, at least, for a long time. Evertype 15:40, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Pointless and/or dubious external links

Two links removed; the first was clearly useless- a link to a run-of-the-mill IT box-shifting website showing a generic keyboard. How did this add *anything* to the article? This could have been an attempt at gaming Google's pagerank, but it might just be a clueless newb adding stuff for the sake of it.

The second was the link to the list of computer manufacturers. At least half of this was adverts, and the whole thing smacked of those annoying 'directories' whose only real purpose is to get into Google's search results and get page-views and clicks for the adverts, regardless of how useful they are. There was a list of manufacturers at the end, but this did not add much to the article.

Fourohfour 17:08, 31 August 2005 (UTC)

ALT-CTRL-DEL behaviour under Linux

Regarding the disagreement on what ALT-CTRL-DEL does under Linux, The Anome asserts that it does "zippo" (which apparently means "nothing").

Sorry, but that's flat-out wrong. I appreciate that Linux is very configurable, and assume that it's possible to disable the behaviour altogether. However, as far as default behaviour goes, the first Linuxes I used (RH 5 onwards) gave an immediate reboot as soon as it was hit. Later versions, including Fedora Core 3 (which I currently use) do the equivalent of "shutdown -r now"; i.e. they close the system down properly before reboot.

Fourohfour 16:39, 3 February 2006 (UTC)

kbpo

Some computer motherboard BIOS has "keyboard power on" (KBPO) feature. That when the computer is powered off, instead of pressing the "power" button, you can press example spacebar on keyboard to power it on. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Frap (talk • contribs) .

Yes, we know that. But why are you saying it here? :) --Gennaro Prota^•Talk 00:25, 22 May 2006 (UTC)

Keyboard/wordprocessor

I just read about the Alphasmart Neo keyboard which the user can type on, storing up to 250 pages of text, and then transfer via USB to computer. It has a small screen for text, and it's claimed to be light and tough, with low power usage (3 AA batteries in 18 months according to an article in my local newspaper). I would absolutely love something like this (cheaper and more practical than a laptop), but was wondering if there are less expensive technologies that do the same thing? (The price I saw in Australia was A$500, about US$375, though it's about $250 in the US, and there might be a cheaper "education" price.)

I think these types of keyboard could even be an alternative to projects such as Simputer and the $100 computer if the price were more competitive. --Singkong2005 06:42, 23 May 2006 (UTC)

Dirt

Article doesnt mention how it easily comes dirt and dust and crap in between the keys and such...

Could have been worded better, but your right. There ought to be a section on the annoyance/inconvenience of dust and food etc becoming lodged inbetween keys. Comments, people? Skaterblo 12:57, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

Health risk

Article dont mention about health risks and pain in wrists from using keyboards...