I found the report on the Scroll Lock key interesting, as I have never had to use it until recently. But I use it fairly often now.
At work, we have needed to buy new PCs while keeping our old, creaking units for using a DOS-based billing program that will not work under Windows XP and would cost too much to be rewritten to do so.
We decided to keep our equipment costs down and our desk space up by using KVM switches to switch monitors and keyboards between PCs. (Old serial mice don’t work well when adapted to PS/2 connectors and run through KVM switches. So we’ll have two mice on our desks. Ah, well.)
On the switches we use, pressing Scroll Lock twice signals the desire to work with a different PC. Pressing either the up or down arrow key effects the transition.
I find this an ingenious use of an otherwise nearly useless key. It’s so simple, even the densest of our people can remember the steps involved. By pressing the key twice, the original Scroll Lock setting is maintained, just in case a program you’re running actually uses it. And because there is no physical switch on the KVM switch, there are no moving parts to break, and I can hide the switches instead of having to make room for them where they’d be handy.
If only everything involving computers was so elegant.
Here’s the link for the report:
http://www.straightdope.com/mailbag/mscrolllock.html