Talk:Keyboard (computing)

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[edit] Keyboard layout Qs&As

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.

[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] Try pasting any character into WP search and hitting enter

Wikipedia (WP) has now advanced to the level where you can paste just about any character that Unicode offers into WP search and hit enter, and an article will pop up telling you the name(s) of the character (common names, uncommmon names), history of usage, computing codes under various encoding systems, etc. It is very useful! Anytime you're reading WP and you see a character that you want to know more about, try copying it and pasting it into the search field. — ¾-10 15:26, 15 January 2008 (UTC)

[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)


[edit] Can I have 2 keyboards on my pc?"

My Question: ___________ I have a Q: kan I have 2 keyboards on my pc? one on PS/2 and 1 on USB? Do I need special drivers? Becose I can manage to put 2.. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 82.78.145.223 (talk • contribs).

I plugged a PS/2 and a USB keyboard into the same PC and it Just Worked without any drivers. Alas, text typed on one ended up intermixed with text typed on the other one. Is there any way for (custom) software to distinguish between 2 keyboards plugged into one PC? That would be useful for 2-player game software. --76.209.28.72 17:04, 19 June 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Computer_keyboard#Customization_of_keyboard section

Regarding the "customization of keyboard" section; someone added this before, and I removed it as it was more appropriate to (a) an "External links" section and (b) more appropriate to the IBM PC keyboard article, since it all relates to Windows keyboard customisation. The original author restored it, and gave his/her reasons here, so rather than remove it again, I thought I'd ask here what people thought. Fourohfour 13:07, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

I 100% agree with you. And the additions look very naive, anyway (what's the difference between "customize the layout" and "remap the keys", BTW? See for instance the todo list at Talk:Keyboard layout; did the original author mean "customizing the physical layout"? :-o) —Gennaro Prota•Talk 19:58, 4 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Arrow Keys

I'm no expert on how keyboards work, but I feel this is worth mentioning, if only on the talk page until some one can clarify it.

Most keys send a single code to the computer when pressed. For example, if you press "0", ascii code 48 (my numbers in decimal) gets sent.

However, if you press an arrow key, the result is two codes, for example (my memory is iffy) down might send 0 and 80.

The technical workings behind this aren't exactly clear to me, but the fact remains that a gamer will have more frequent troubles with "phantom key blocking" if they use the arrows, as opposed to the WSAD combo.

- Bomb Bloke 11:28, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

This is a more suitable candidate for IBM PC keyboard than the general article. Fourohfour 14:46, 16 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] History?

Shouldn't there be some history of the keyboard in there too?

217.140.112.221 13:05, 11 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] "of course the often maligned control-key/caps-lock switch"

I've no idea what this means. In my experience sentences starting "of course" tend to introduce statements that are obvious to the writer but obscure to everyone else. Would someone like to re-word, please? --rossb 13:46, 4 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Keystroke vs Keyboard

I do not believe the articles should be merged. A keyboard is an object while a keystroke is an action. Keystroke should remain a stub with the possibility of a list of default windows keystrokes listed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.126.236.103 (talk) 23:49, 7 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates

Ergonomic Keyboard for Pirates. Have a happy International Talk Like a Pirate Day. --70.130.45.233 04:39, 20 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Keyboard (computing)

I think that this article should be moved to Keyboard (computing) to be more consistent with Mouse (computing) and since it's more commonly referred to as a "keyboard" and not a "computer keyboard". Anybody dissagree? —TigerK 69 06:38, 28 September 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Disruptive todo list

It is recommended that you remove all references to Qwerty in this article as it is an archaic and unergonomical keyboard layout. Keyboard manufacturers have ignored any physical improvements in keyboards, by not welcoming any improvements in the keyboard layout, such as Dvorak.

The use of "shift" on some keyboards (to get uppercase letters) is also an archaism. Jackiespeel (talk) 16:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)

Everyone deserves the more modern and more efficient Dvorak keyboard layout. Period.

The above was at the top of the page with the todo tag above it. I have (well another user has due to my colleges proxy not letting me edit the full page) moved it down here and removed the todo tag. I have no idea of the user who made it and knowing my luck a signiture bot will sign it as mine. Also a shift to dvorak would mean a complete rewrite to most accepted shortcuts and having to reconfigure many old shortcuts and keyboard commands. I doubt it will ever happen. TheGreatZorko (talk) 11:17, 13 December 2007 (UTC)


[edit] Cleaning keyboards

See the article in The Guardian - [1] - where did the "internet legend" of washing keyboares come from? Jackiespeel (talk) 16:15, 6 May 2008 (UTC)