I saw a prototype keyboard somewhere recently where the legends on the keytops were not printed on, they were all tiny colour OLED matrix screens, so you could remap the keyboard any way you like and just change the keytop displays, moreover, the key legends could be changed by whatever program was running, so when you’re playing a game, instead of having to remember that the Z key fires photon torpedoes, the legend on the key could just change to “fire photon torpedoes”
Ah. Here it is: http://www.artlebedev.com/portfolio/optimus/
Looks like it will be in commercial production really soon; the mini version is already available to order.
OK, mine gives me: \ and | woo hoo!
The | looks like an elongated colon on the key face (misprint? Part of the symbol scraped away?). No wonder I didn’t see it!
Print Screen, in the pre-GUI days, used to send whatever’s on the screen directly to the printer. Nowadays, it takes a snapshot image of the screen and copies it to the clipboard. Then you have to open an image editing program (such as MS Paint or Photoshop) and “paste” the screenshot into a new image file.
I use PrtScn all the time, taking screenshots of games like Civilization or The Sims (which have their own built-in screenshot ability, but it doesn’t always work right) or saving images from websites that have right-click options disabled, so you can’t save the file directly. 
It’s one key which wanders all over the place depending on the locality. UK keyboards tend to have it in the top left, or beside Z.
That’s the coolest thing I’ve seen in ages.
Caps Lock is removed from every keyboard I buy. I have never used it intentionally, and always get major errors when it’s hit by mistake.
On my Dell laptop, the numeric keys on the keyboard get locked “on” when numlock is active, and you don’t need to hold fn to use them.
I use ScrLk in Excel quite often, as well as |, ~, `, and ^. So, I’m going to have to go with SysRq. From the Wikipedia article: “SysRq or SysReq (short for System Request) is a key on keyboards for PCs that has no standard use.”
–FCOD
That looks so cool, but then they went and messed up the standard location of the return key.
:smack:
That thrice-damned Insert key. Oh, sure, I may not use the Scroll Lock or Pause/Break keys, but I don’t accidentally hit them when searching for Home or End or Delete either.
And I never realize it until it’s too late.
No, it’s always like that on the keyboards (at least all those I’ve seen) - whether it is rendered as a single line or two seems to depends on the font, or the codepage, or something. Oh I dunno.
Looking at my UK Microsoft keyboard:
Shift plus (left of Z) = |
Alt Gr plus (top left) = ¦
(Amusingly, the characters appeared the opposite way to how they are shown on the keyboard 
)
Ditto. Caps wins (or loses, depending on how you look at it.)
Like all true *nix geeks, I’ve got it mapped to Ctrl.
Insert, Prt Scr, and Pause/Break come close, though I’ve used the latter two in various terminal emulators. I’ve got them mapped to play/pause and volume up/down on my laptop.
I use ~, `, and | several dozen times per day.
I just checked this on mine and it’s the same - the wrong way around. That top left one must be the least useful key for me; I don’t think I’ve ever used it.
I was going to say that that’s why I use Scroll Lock. Of course, the fact that these KVM switch companies chose that key indicates that they determined that it was the most useless key. (I guess that they also chose to double-click a toggling (sp?) key to minimize interferrence with other applications.)
Between the two or three 3D programs I use, nearly every key has been assigned to do something. Pressing ‘Insert’ in Maya, for example, lets you move around the pivot point of the selected object.
I’m not sure about Pause/Break/ScrLk, though. I remember using Pause/Break older computers to stop a scroll, and ScrLk would completely freeze up the antideluvian computers at the art store I used to work at.
The Windows key can be useful, but it’s the menu button or whatever on the other side that’s useless (to me).
In Microsoft Word/Excel (and possibly other programs, I haven’t tried), F12 is “Save As”. Very useful for me, when I’m editing tons of documents every day and need to make a new copy. I love keyboard shortcuts.
Occasionally someone might want to type something in Spanish. And i think that’s actually an accent mark. I’d check if I weren’t so damn lazy.
[temporary hijack]
What is up with some keyboards using a ‘single sized’ key for backspace and other having a ‘double sized’ key for backspace. All the keyboards I use have the ‘double sized’ backspace key, then every once in a while I will be using a keyboard with the ‘single sized’ backspace key and go to press it and miss… I then end up with a bunch of ====== or whatever they put up there instead… It just makes me mad…
[end temporary hijack]
The sys rq was use a lot before CDs. For those who remember floppy disks that were actually floppy we used to put a bunch of them in a box or “magazine.” Then when we’d back up the system. What sys req does is it means the system (in this case the back up) would tell you when the magazine or 7" floppies were full and you needed to put in a new magazine. Basically it’s saying the system is requiring or requesting you do something.
It is still used on propritary systems. Anytime you need to have interaction there will be a message, at the bottom of your computer. Since they generally aren’t window systems it’ll looks something like the NUM key in Excel. Anyway that tells you the computer is talking to you and you hit the sys rq button to respond to the question the comptuer asks
Break was also used in the old days of computers. It wasn’t always ctr-shift-del. Then it was ctr-shift=-break
In windows the ~is also a wildcard. You’ll note a lot of your files have a ~ before them. Like MS Word when it does a backup copy of your document.
I have never used the ` key yet
The BIG complaint I have is why did they take off the ¢ ky and replace it with the ^ above the number 6.
By th way you get the ¢ key by holding down the alt key (keep holding it as you type in) 0162 . IN other words alt+0162 = ¢