What the hell is the “num lock” key for on a computer keyboard for? What does it do?
It’s a holdover from older keyboards that had no dedicated cursor keys like the original IBM PC and AT. If you hit the num lock and turn it off, you’ll notice that you have cursor, PgUp, PgDn, Home and End functions instead of digits. It’s as useless as tits on a boar hog but it maintains backward compatibility.
Pretty straightforward…
It allows the number pad on the right side of the keyboard to be used as a number pad.
Turn numlock off and the number pad becomes arrow keys, Pg Up, Pg Dn keys and so on.
This may seem goofy but this is a holdover from the days before Windows and your Mouse. You could easily jump around a text document by using the number pad and then switch it to function AS a number pad when you wanted. When there were no scroll bars and the like this was the best way to go.
Some things die hard I guess.
My notebook computer has a Num Lock key - but no number pad on the right. It has been two years and I still can’t figure out why it is there.
Look at your laptop keyboard closely. On the letter keys you will probably see little numbers in a different color paint sharing the same keys as the letters.
That’s your number pad. However, this is usually engaged on a laptop through the use of a function key (Fn). Not sure what numlock has to do with it.
Test it and let us know what you find out!
Num lock is usually turned on in your bios all the time but you can change that.
Scroll lock on the other hand, I never gave any thought to what it does.
i beleive there still is the capability thru my comp/accessability options to turn on the number pad to use similiar to a mouse. is that right?
My notebook also has a number lock with no side number keys (but which does have its own dedicated cursor arrows)-- the lock turns some of the letter keys into numbers, I assume for use by people who have10-key training (which I do not), like accountants and such, so they can punch numbers quickly instead of using the awkward line of numbers at the top of the keyboard.
Yeah, more importantly, Scroll Lock…don’t make me start a new thread.
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Scroll lock was used to halt screen scrolling when you were viewing something too big to fit on a single screen. I remember using it most often when doing a directory command (dir) in DOS and the first files would scroll off the screen before you could read them. Of course, you could use the dir /p command to force it to stop at every screen, but then you had to hit a key at every page, not just the one you wanted to look at.
The break key doesn’t have much application either nowadays, as you now use CTRL-ALT-DEL to force programs to stop.
True both keys are holdovers from the olden days, but since there are still many dumb terminals still in use (Point of Sale and dirty warehouses come to mind), those keys are still necessary in some cases…
True Story (happened to me, '90).
I was working as PC support for a federal agency. Part of my job was to install and upgrade software requested by users. We had a request to upgrade dBaseIII to the latest version in the architectural department. When I went up to do the upgrade, there was no-one around, so I did the install, made sure everything worked and left a note that the work had been completed. A couple of hours later I got a call from the user.
User: I understand you upgraded my computer?
Me: Yes, I installed the latest version of dBaseIII
User: Well it doesn’t work any more.
Me: Oh, well I tried it when I was up there. What’s wrong with it?
User: I used to be able to page up and page down between the fields, and now it won’t do that.
Me: What happens when you try?
User: I just get 9s and 3s.
Me: …Okay, there’s a button on the top of the number pad that says “NUM LOCK”, press that…
User: Okay, it works now.<click>
It was then that I realized that the stories that I had heard about dumb users were true…
Not in this case they’re not. I can see as clear as day the Pg Up and Pg Dn keys on my keyboard’s numeric keypad, which also happen to have 9 and 3 labels on them.
Don’t blame users for the fact that once a feature gets added to a device, it never gets taken away, whether or not it still makes sense to have it.
NO, no, no. You’re all wrong. The only reason the Num Lock key is there is to make me look like a dumbass when I’m stressed out of my pants and half asleep at five o’clock in the morning and trying to enter the damn purchases into the computer at work. Stupid Num Lock. I hate you.
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You can remap these keys to toggle various options. In Windows, I have num lock toggling mousekeys, an accessability function that lets you use the numberic keypad to move the mouse cursor. In Linux, scroll lock still freezes the screen. I’ve also had the numeric keypad mapped to switch virtual consoles. Fun stuff.
Its original purpose is still useful. For games and such, the arrow keys on the keypad seem better laid out than those that aren’t, and the keypad is faster for inputting numbers when num lock is activated.
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