Least used keyboard key

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I nominate "\,|" above the enter key

― Mike Hanle y, Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

http://www.cnn.com/2001/COMMUNITY/11/15/bergen.cnna/story.peter.bergen .jpg

― Mike Hanle y, Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I use that one for all my macros so I use it quite a bit. I nominate ¬, above Tab.

― Madchen, Thursday, 15 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

that funny one with the arrow pointing up. is it an ejector seat or something.

― Michael Jones, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nobody uses the get out of jail free key

― duane, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

§/±

― Will, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

it's got to be that shift key. i've tried pressing it loads of times. nothing ever happens.

― MarkH, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'\' is used as a path separator in dos/windows and an escape character in C/C++ so I use it quite a bit. And '||' means logical or in C/C++ so I use that frequently as well. I nominate 'Scroll Lock' (directly above 'Home' on a normal PC keyboard) which I don't think I have ever pressed intentionally.

― RickyT, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

'cd\' is for those of a wet and weedy inclination. Real h4x0rs would use 'cd..'!

― DG, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

i don't even know what Alt Gr does! Scroll lock is a pain in the ass as i keep accidentally pressing it. don't think i've ever used ` either! also my keyboard has a button with a little windows symbol on it - what's that all about!?!

― katie, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

€ although that's cheaing - alt 2 on a Mac. Single press key § ±

― Anna, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Scroll Lock. Nevah used. Also I can't think of an occasion where I haf used F12 using BORING WINDOZE. The key with the Windows logo on it pops up the menu if I'm thinking of the same one. I rarely use ^ too. I dunno what Alt Gr is either oh well then. Bring back the rubber keys!

― Sarah, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

rather drastically i've pulled off the Caps Lock key. that's my least used key. i've only ever hit it by accident. i think i've used all the others.

― m jemmeson, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

"help"

― mark s, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

shop round the corner from me has these funny fake keyboard keys, like 'Eject' and stuff. shame they don't actually fit onto the keyboard in place of another key though

― m jemmeson, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

notning fake about an eject key. there's one on my mac extended kboard. it's a little icon-y thing rather than the word "eject", i grant you, but it does the trick.

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

the trick being to open a skylight and then hurl my neighbour through it on a giant comedy spring.

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

gah! i pressed the windows key and verily it did bring up the menu! so that's that one solved - cheers sarah! (dunno why i didn't just press it before to see what it did but i was AFEARED)

― technophobe katie, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

My trusty bloke-next-to tells me that if you press the windows key + e, Explorer pops up. And verily it doth work!

― Madchen, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is this a contender for Most Extremely Sad Thread?

― Madchen, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Windows Key + M minimizes everything, handy when someone comes over and there are 100s of IL* windows...

― michael, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Windows + shift + M puts it all back up there

― Madchen, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Is there any way to do this on a Mac, cause for me it's the main reason Macs suck?

― Nick, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

And Windows + F = Find and Windows + R = Run. Fun!

― Madchen, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have never used Pause Break, WTF is it used for, you know beside scrool lock, in fact that whole micro row , with PrtSRcSysRq,Scroll Lock and Pause Break .

― anthony, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

shift is inverse, where it works. e.g. Alt+Tab cycles through the open windows, and Shift+Alt+Tab does this in reverse. handy when you Alt+Tab too far.

― michael, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I have an azerty keyboard. Examining it closely for first time I see there is a key above the tab key, which I never even noticed before. Let's see what it does: ²

PRESSING SHIFT IT DOES THIS: ³

― Jeff, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I still can't find the any key

― chris, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

If you click on Print Screen, then go into word or paint and press ctrl + v, it copies the whole screen onto the page and you can send it to the nice man in helpdesk who can tell you why your computer is up the spout. Be sure to close IL*, Hotmail Messenger and any bad non-work things you are using before doing this to avoid hot water.

― Madchen, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

alt and print-screen will just snapshot the active window. i hate myself.

― Alan Trewartha, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Don't worry Alan, I knew that too.

― Nick, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

actually, I never use the "ass wash " key either

― Mike Hanle y, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

nick on a mac if you hold down option and click the window minimize thing all the windows turn into titlebars.

― ethan, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

[though option-windowshade only minimizes on an application-by- application basis]

― Geek Hand, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Yeah - I want to get to icons hidden behind loads of applications on the desktop. At the moment it takes forever. Are macs officially a pile of shit, then?

― Nick, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

option-click the desktop then, hides all other apps.

― ethan, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nope - for me that just brings up my network folder. Oh well - it's probably the way the IT dept have set up our macs. All I know is that I can do things a million times more quickly on a PC.

― Nick, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

I've not used the 'pause break' key. Or the alternative number keys, they are rubbish.

― james, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

The "\|' key is really important in unix as it operates as a pipe. Without we be reduced to trying to redirect everything, also operates as mentioned before in C/C++ as bitwise or logical or. Id also nominate the ` key but tilde is wonderful unix symbol. I say Pause break key peffering the classier Crtl C myself.

― Mr Noodles, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Function keys except when I work on WP for dos. Don't ask.

― Sterling Clover, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

Nick, I don't believe you. Try it again.

― Tracer Hand, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

DG, what do real (failed, i.e. Windows-using) h4x0rz do when they are more than one subdirectory deep? And real (if slightly rubbish) kr4qx0r h4x0rz need \ so they can tell other people to type "dir con\con" (don't try this at home, Windows users, unless you're using XP or a patched win98).

I only ever use`¬¦ when I remember that sometimes Windows commandline piping doesn't like | any more and I have to use ¦ instead. Eh? Seems to work ok on here, so I guess it's a keyboard layout definition problem. (OH MY GOD I've just discovered XP has tab completion YESSSSSSSSSS ahahahaaaa! sorry)

Caps lock gets in the way, although occasionally I use it. Scroll lock: does it do anything except in Excel? Not that I've seen. Useless. I also only use num lock to turn it on/off for games that use the arrow keys and have rubbish keyboard polling, I never type numbers (except extended ascii codes with alt) on the number pad. And those power-saving keys on newer keyboards are rubbish. My work computer had "suspend/enter power-saving mode" and "resume", except once you've pressed the former the computer stops taking any notice of the keyboard or the mouse and there is no way to wake it up again, so the second key is useless. Ha!

Have I outgeeked everyone else yet? I wish you could get computing degrees just for sounding and looking like a really big nerd, instead of actually having to know stuff. But I'd probably still fail because I hardly ever use Linux, I don't understand encryption or TCP/IP, I don't own any t-shirts saying embarrassing things like "will code for bandwidth" or celebrating ssh's superiority to telnet and rsh, and I'm not addicted to penguin mints.

― Rebecca, Friday, 16 November 2001 01:00 (twenty-four years ago)

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