Talk:Computer keyboard

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
To-do list for Computer keyboard: edit · history · watch · refresh

Here's a list of comments after a quick reading of the article (please voice your opinions/suggestions):

  • by-pass redirect to computer peripheral; ok, this should be uncontroversial :-)
  • avoid repetitions in lead section (e.g. "other keys do not produce any symbol, but instead affect the operation of the computer or the keyboard itself" just repeats "to control the operation of a computer"). I guess we could remove "Keyboards are designed for the input of text and characters and also to control the operation of a computer."
  • the word "produce", used in many places, is a tad perplexing to me; what does it mean to "produce a symbol"? Note that what you type may not be visible at all, or be visible much later. Suggestions for better wordings?
  • "Roughly 50% of all keyboard keys produce letters, numbers or signs (characters). Other keys can produce actions when pressed, and other actions are available by the simultaneous pressing of more than one action key". Again, except for indicating a percentage (is that right, BTW? and is it needed?) this just seems to repeat, once again, what is said above
  • "lay-out" -> "layout"
  • Remove/reduce the "Keys on a computer keyboard" section? There's a navigation box now...
  • Expand the "How it works" section, possibly with pictures/diagrams
  • CTRL+ALT+DELETE should just be mentioned, and a link to the relevant article be provided; the behavior when the combination is used is various enough to leave the details to its own article (see comments by Fourohfour and Gam3, below)


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 top picture of a standard American keyboard layout is incorrect. It is not American, but rather the Asian "american" style. A true american keyboard has a rectangular enter key, the \ moved on top, and a wider backspace key. The picture of the Microsoft on screen keyboard is correct.

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.

Contents

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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'.

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)


[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)

On Ubuntu Linux, CTRL+ALT+DEL does nothing. 64.119.66.10 03:27, 14 November 2006 (UTC)

Under X-windows the behavior of CTRL+ALT+DEL is determined by the window manager. I believe that KDE and Gnome both have behavior very simular to Microsoft Windows. On a terminal the behavior of CTRL+ALT+DEL is controled by an entry in the /etc/inittab file.

Gam3 10:50, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Gnome under FC5 still seems to do the equivalent of typing "shutdown -r now" into a terminal window; c.f. Windows where it brings up the menu. OTOH, maybe your distro has it configured differently. Fourohfour 12:57, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)
I think he wants to have it mentioned somewhere in the article xP Skaterblo 13:02, 23 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] 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)

[edit] 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)
Well I'm not sure whether it worths mention; for instance there's no section on that in basement or finger nail.Cloviz 00:30, 3 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Health risk

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

Merge from the article on RSI? Skaterblo 13:01, 23 June 2006 (UTC)
Not a merge, IMHO, but definitely a mention, possibly with external/internal links. I remember having read some articles on the subject (proper desk/keyboard/monitor placement etc.) on the net. Could someone choose one or two quality links and add them to the todo-list? —Gennaro Prota•Talk 13:08, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Keyboard layouts

There are many keyboard layouts, such as 101, 102, 104, 108, etc. Is the difference between these documented on Wikipedia? If not, please add this information somewhere. Thanks, Ynhockey (Talk) 09:51, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

There is no standard for this IMHO. There was a time when the 104 keyboard had a small enter key and the 105 keyboard had the large enter key (yes this seems backwards). But I don't think that the number of keys tells anything about the layout any more.

Gam3 14:40, 5 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Alternative keyboards?

http://gadgets.fosfor.se/the-top-10-weirdest-keyboards-ever/ crazu stuff like the datahand and orbitouch deserve a mention;) 0roo0roo 15:31, 5 October 2006

  • LoL :-) I begin to think that we should say the computer keyboards were *originally* designed after typewriters keyboards —Gennaro Prota•Talk 13:04, 12 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Typingwriter design flaw transferred to computer keyboards

As most computer keyboard lay-outs (Qwerty, Azerty, ...) are based on a typingwriter-keyboard, it is understandable that the new lay-outs (Dvorak, ...) are much better suited for typing due to the specific keyboard design problems that typingwriters faced. Typingwriters keyboard design had to be balanced between the mechanical problem that letters needed to be spaced apart . This because the letters were attached to booms who needed to move freely, aswell as the problem that the hands needed to be able to reach much used letters easily. As computer keyboards do not have these limitations and therefore no balance needs to be found, it is unimaginable that the same typingwriter keyboard layouts where transferred to computer keyboards.

The above text (or a simplified version of it) should be included in the computer keyboard article, so that people can learn that the transfer of qwerty and azerty keyboard lay-outs to computer keyboards did happen, and that this was wrong.

KVDP 11:57, 27 November 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed merge with IBM PC keyboard

Oppose, but move obviously generic material here. I'm strongly in favour of keeping closely-related info together, in context, if the article isn't too long and the alternative is pointless perma-stubs. That doesn't apply here. Merging large amounts of PC-specific detail would make the common mistake of bloating generic articles with excessive detail regarding specific cases. As the most common keyboard, some info should be included here, but keep the nitpicky detail in its own article. Fourohfour 13:19, 9 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose, quoting in full Fourohfour. —Gennaro Prota•Talk 03:47, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Oppose per Fourohfour. Fedallah 04:05, 11 December 2006 (UTC)

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../c/o/m/Talk%7EComputer_keyboard_bc4d.html"