What's missing on modern keyboards?

[MHaensel]

The discussion started on reddit, but I'd like to pick up here also.

 

Modern keyboards feel like they're missing a bunch of functionality. On older computers, pressing one key (or a pair of keys) let you:

• Clear the text entry area (CLR, CLEAR, CLR SCRN or similar)
• Pause program operation (PAUSE, HOLD)
• Stop program operation (STOP, BREAK)
• Draw line/boxes on-screen using ASCII art
• Type open- and closed-circle for bullet lists
• Change text color

 

Those things would still be handy today! You can do some of this using Unicode, but even how-to instructions say it's easier to find the character somewhere else and copy-and-paste.

 

What else is missing on modern keyboards?

[jhd]

 

Did anyone (intentionally) use the Clear Screen key? I had a Coco that had that function, but I cannot ever recall having used it other than by accident. Learning to type CLS was like the first or second lesson in the BASIC manual.

 

The Coco had a low-resolution graphics mode, but there was no way to draw directly on the screen using the keyboard.

 

The addition of general-purpose function keys (together with Ctrl and Alt keys, or the Mac equivalent) has alleviated the need for some of these special-purpose keys.  

[DragonGrafx-16]

I only ever used clear screen on DOS and that was a command and not a key.

[carlsson]

Doesn't every PC keyboard have a Pause/Break key, except that how different programs utilize it differs? Every PC keyboard also has a Home key, and I believe that Shift + Home can be detected so programs can erase the entire buffer (why ever you want that functionality) by pressing it. Text colours I dunno, modern computers don't work quite in that way anymore and honestly not every retro computer enabled you to change text colours by pressing a key anyway, so you're comparing it pretty much against Commodore standards.

 

To some respect, it is like comparing features and specs of a 1930's car with one from today. Both have an engine and four wheels, but a lot has changed beyond that.

[+chue]

I sure would like an “ANY” key. ?

Actually I don’t feel like any keys are missing. But I do miss the LEDs sometimes: caps lock, num lock, and scroll lock.

 

 Ok actually scroll lock is useless to me but the other two are still nice to have.

[The Usotsuki]

On 12/27/2020 at 4:00 PM, jhd said:

 

Did anyone (intentionally) use the Clear Screen key? I had a Coco that had that function, but I cannot ever recall having used it other than by accident. Learning to type CLS was like the first or second lesson in the BASIC manual.

Stuff that uses GNU's libreadline has Ctrl-L as a clear screen sequence.  I use it all the time in bash.

[MHaensel]

On 12/27/2020 at 1:00 PM, jhd said:

 

Did anyone (intentionally) use the Clear Screen key?

 

On 12/27/2020 at 4:00 PM, carlsson said:

Doesn't every PC keyboard have a Pause/Break key, except that how different programs utilize it differs? Every PC keyboard also has a Home key, and I believe that Shift + Home can be detected so programs can erase the entire buffer (why ever you want that functionality) by pressing it. Text colours I dunno, modern computers don't work quite in that way anymore and honestly not every retro computer enabled you to change text colours by pressing a key anyway, so you're comparing it pretty much against Commodore standards.

 

To some respect, it is like comparing features and specs of a 1930's car with one from today. Both have an engine and four wheels, but a lot has changed beyond that.

 

40 minutes ago, The Usotsuki said:

Stuff that uses GNU's libreadline has Ctrl-L as a clear screen sequence.  I use it all the time in bash.

The clear screen key was occasionally useful for me, when the C=64 screen editor was cluttered up with broken/wrapped lines, partial program output, and lines of user input. It was nice being able to clear that all away.

 

My laptop keyboard doesn't have a pause/break key. My desktop does, as @carlsson notes! But I don't recall the pause key actually pausing programs any more, and the break key . . . does it do anything? I'll have to test later.

 

Shift-Home does different things in different programs! In a Firefox text input box, it selects all text. In Notepad, it apparently does nothing. I may need a better operating system because CTRL-L sounds useful too.

 

I think @carlsson's point hits home: modern computers don't quite work that way any more. The need for "clear screen" is much reduced when you can just close a window to get rid of old data, or open a whole new document with CTRL-N. Likewise changing colors: How often do we really want to change text colors anyway? Rainbow text was great fun when I was 8. But I'm not sure it would add much impact in 2020

[potatohead]

Just FYI:  Shift+Home in Notepad selects everything from the cursor back to beginning of the line.  But, it's lame.  It literally is the beginning of the line as displayed on the screen, not a line as defined by there being a CF/LF or whatever EOL sequence makes sense.  It's a pure display thing.  I know this because I use the crap out of that key combo.  Picked it up long ago, with the other selection modifiers available via keyboard and just use them all over the place.  Quickness mostly.  

 

If anything, having application keys would be spiffy, same for multiple desktops.  

 

Trends these days lean toward lots of displays and dumber window managers, tiling mostly.  Sometimes I run with a couple displays, but being mobile a lot in this point in my working life, stay at home covid times right now aside, I use a single display like I pretty much always have.  If I get more displays, I use them too, but one is the dominate mode right now.  

 

So that means either mousing over something, or it means some keyboard combination to toggle through various applications to change focus, and or whether it's in front, or not depending on one's OS and window manager rules.  Or, it means a gesture of some sort.

 

All of that is fine, but if one uses the keyboard a lot, app buttons and desktop buttons would be spiffy!  We are up to two and three key combos for many of these kinds of things.  Two keys is fine, three is annoying, but still fine.  Boiling apps and or multiple desktops down to single keys would be great!

 

I mention both because it boils down to new school vs old school window management.  For the new school, it's full screen or tiling of some sort and that's it.  These people groove on multiple desktops, once they know about them.  

 

Old school is a mix.  Having overlapping windows gets one a lot of use out of one display, but it does take some getting used to if that's not how work has been getting done.  And multiple desktops works the same way for everyone, except for I would say old school users may just consider them application groups.  Arrange stuff on one desktop, make another one, make another arrangment, and so forth.

 

The new schoolers would run apps full screen, or make a simple collection with a tiling function and that's it.

 

yeah, this got long, but it's something I care a lot about apparently.

 

Verdict:  Gimme app keys and or virtual desktop keys that aren't a Vulcan death grip on the keyboard to use.

 

Now that I think about it, having the track pad where it is on laptops is actually pretty great.  When I'm on one, I do not use a mouse much these days.  Just got fast with the track pad, and if it's an Apple computer, the gestures rock hard.  Use those too.  

 

For me, having some other forms of input handy would be nice, and over the years I've collected a little set of USB add ons.  Numeric Keypad, which could be mapped to the app / VW functions.  3D controller, etc...

 

I would add a key that is most of one of those little 3D controllers.  Maybe put a little nub on it, so one can just put a finger on the thing and press it down, wiggle it back and forth, rock it up and down and have it deliver some reasonable gradient of values.  But make it a key, that's springly and quick, not like the typical Lenovo nipple thing.  It's not a full 3D controller, but it would get used a lot. 

 

Would be killer to put at least one little slider and one low profile dial with a detent for "Zero" and a key shape that let's someone "Turn the dial" without too much hassle and while not really leaving the keyboard.  This could be a gesture on a track pad, but something that actually moves, with a dimple would be better.  There are little volume control things and other USB goodies for these purposes, but having it built in, dead simple seems like a worthy keyboard add on.

 

(Apple explored this with the touch bar, but I pretty much hate it.  The idea is good, but it's not really tactile, does not have state, feedback, and all the things real controls do, and I pretty much suck at using the touch bar for the lack of those things)

 

Those are all pie in the sky things, so...  back down to earth.

 

Sometimes I like voice input.  My phone has it, and since writing things on touch is a shit show anyway, I've come to use that a lot more than I expected.  On Windows 10, it's win key + h.  If there were a single key for voice, I would use it frequently.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[high voltage]

chicklet keyboard = arse

[high voltage]

The IBM clicky PC keyboard was the daddy, styled after the IBM Selectric typewriter.

 

 

Edited December 30, 2020 by high voltage

[The Usotsuki]

The Shift-Home thing is part of CUA (Common User Access).  Windows' GUI (along with that of OS/2) was designed around CUA - which eventually got mixed with elements taken from its Macintosh counterpart.  You'll still find a lot of CUA shortcuts work not only on Windows but in most Linux apps - either because of the connection with the CDE, which IBM was involved with and which has some tenuous connections to OS/2, or because a lot of people brought the CUA conventions with them from the Windows world.