OT Capslock key

Paul wrote:
Chris wrote:
T wrote:
On 11/1/19 6:02 PM, Rene Lamontagne wrote:
Being one of the worlds worst typists my keyboard and the useless,
obnoxious caps lock key finally tried my patience one step too far.
I downloaded and installed Key Teak from.

https://www.majorgeeks.com/files/det...ml#screenshots

Then I was finally able to disable that useless key Forever, Something
I should have done ages ago.

Rene
Hi Rene,

I can type by the way and I find the capo lock key to
be OBNOXIOUS!

You are way nicer that me about it. At times, I have
pried it off with a small screwdriver. If I want
cap locks I have to stick my little finger down
the hole.

On my base Linux system, I have resorted to mapping
it to the giant bit bucket in the sky.

I always turn it off. Windows, Mac and Linux. It is a waste of keyboard
space. Why is it such a big key?


The keyboard was designed to roughly match the old
mechanical typewriters. The Shift Lock would be in
that position on an Underwood. You pushed the Shift
to lift the entire typing mechanism, to capitalize
one letter. You pushed the Shift Lock to lock the
mechanism in the elevated position. A slight
second push on the Shift Lock, released the
locking mechanism.

The Caps Lock is in the place of the Shift Lock,
and is a bit larger than the Shift Lock used to be.
The Shift key was a relatively large diameter circle.
While the Shift Lock was made smaller, presumably for
tactile purposes. The Shift Lock didn't need as much
force, because it was just a lock, while the Shift
was the part that did the lifting of the entire
typewriter central mechanism.

Yes i know how the mechanical caps lock worked, but that's no reason to
keep it. Mechanical keyboards haven't been relevant for over 50 years. A
small button would work just as well. The carriage return and backspace
keys have already shrunk.

Part of the key layout on a computer keyboard, is
a kind of "brickwork", with an offset between rows.
The end keys are scaled to fill the half-key offset
and square up the ends of the keyboard matrix. The
size of the key is just happenstance. The position
of the key is meant to match a mechanical typewriter,
so you would "feel at home" while using it.

And using a mechanical typewriter, is a lot like
playing the piano :-) If you learned to play the
piano first, your typing speed would pick up faster
than the other students in your class. Just as learning
to ice skate, makes it easier to learn the balance
of downhill skiing. It's a bitch to teach someone
to downhill ski, who has never ice-skated ("they keep
falling over").

Paul

NY wrote:
"Ken Blake" wrote in message
...
On 11/4/2019 10:14 AM, NY wrote:
"Ken Blake" wrote in message
...
A guy at work, did absolutely nothing as a kid.
Didn't even ride a bicycle. We decided to teach him
to ski.


I never learned to ride a bike until I was 11. I learned, but I was
terrible at it. I haven't done it for about 70 years and couldn't do it
now.

I was surprised at how quickly the skill of riding a bike came back to me
after about 30 years of not riding.


Your skill at it must be much better than mine ever was. When I learned
how, I just barely managed to do it.

I can't remember ever not being able to ride a bike, or the exhilaration
when I first managed the technique - which probably says more about my
memory than about any innate bike-riding skill ;-) My balance is generally
not very good - I can't stand on one leg for very long and I've never been
able to walk a tightrope. But riding a bike seemed to come naturally.

I remember getting my first bike and learning to ride it. Particularly as
one of the stabilisers broke off so i learnt by leaning to one side. My
parents thought that when they took the other one off I'd just topple over.
Nope. I was fine.

One thing I tried a couple of years ago was riding on a Segway in Spain.
Spain have sensible laws (unlike the UK) and you can ride them on the road
or on a pavement that has a cycle lane. It took a while to get my balance: a
group of us on an excursion from a cruise

That reminds me. About the most bored tourists I've ever seen were a bunch
on Segways on a tour in Lisbon near the Torre de Belem.