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The most useless key on my keyboard is Num Lock

by jonadab (Parson)
on Nov 17, 2005 at 12:16 UTC ( [id://509377]=note: print w/replies, xml ) Need Help??


in reply to The most useless key on my keyboard is:

Why on earth would I want Num Lock *ever* to be on? There's already a perfectly good set of numbers, right above where the letters are, so *why* would I want to use the cursor control keypad for typing numbers? I need those keys for their original intended purpose. (No, don't talk to me about the duplicate keys that were added for the 101-key layout; they're arranged very badly, so that you can't reach both the arrows and pgup/pgdn/home/end without moving your hand; on the keypad, you can do it all.)

Since Num Lock wasn't an option, I voted for Caps Lock, although it's really quite a bit more useful since there is usually an option to treat it as another Ctrl key, which gives you one that's slightly easier to reach.

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Re: The most useless key on my keyboard is Num Lock
by Anonymous Monk on Nov 17, 2005 at 22:11 UTC
    You've never done sales or done a great deal of straight numeric entry. Besides just being faster in normal use, when one is trying to sort out papers with one hand and quick-typing numbers with the other, there is no replacement for the 10-key (Well, on my keyboard 18-key) numeric keypad.
      You've never done sales or done a great deal of straight numeric entry.

      I'm a programmer, Jim, not an accountant.

      Besides just being faster in normal use

      That's just the thing -- typing the numbers on the top row is faster (assuming you actually type rather than hunt and peck). Typing "7" takes the same amount of time as typing "b"; typing "$" takes the same amount of time as typing "M". Typing "1,241,760" takes the same just about amount of time as typing "keyboards".

      I could see it if you were re-typing long columns of numbers, like accountants used to have to do when they were entering data that came to them on paper, but I was under the distinct impression that such primitive times were just about over now, and that each number was now put in just once, when the purchase order line items are initially filled in, and that subsequent operations (such as removing the money from the fund, printing the number on the check, listing expenditures on the budget report, and so forth) would be handled automatically by the accounting software. I realise that accounting software is 15 years behind word processing software in terms of standardization, featurefulness, and user interface, but nevertheless, typing things twice was done away in the late 70s for computer geeks and in the late 80s for everyone else, so it ought to be thoroughly gone now for accountants as well, I should hope. Do they really have to re-type in long columns of pre-existing numbers? Ugh.

        I'm a programmer, Jim, not an accountant.
        And you've never had to enter a table of numbers into a program?

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