Off Topic - Question for ye olde computer geeks

[geoschmo]

Yeah, I know I'm a computer geek too, but I have no idea the answer to this question.

I was having a nice coversation with my 8 year old daugther today. She was asking me about computers, and what I did at work. I told her a lttle bit about how computers work, on a level that she could manage. Then she asked me, what's the scroll lock key for?

[insert sound of jaw dropping open]Duhhhh, I don't know honey.

I told her that it doesn't have any use, so she asked me why it's on the keyboard. So I told her that it used to have a purpose, but that nobody uses it anymore, but that the people that make the keyBoards are afraid to not put it on there because if they didn't someone might need it for something.

Anyone have a better explanation than that?

Geoschmo

[ July 24, 2002, 21:58: Message edited by: geoschmo ]

[Baron Munchausen]

That's a pretty good explanation. It dates from the days of 'Glass TTY'. When there was no 'scroll back' you had to have Scroll LOCK to stop the screen and read it before it scrolled away. I think it's still used by some programs for screen capture. No other uses I am aware of.

[ July 24, 2002, 20:32: Message edited by: Baron Munchausen ]

[Gryphin]

Baron is correct.
It was used in MS DOS but I don't recall the Version.
It is used for Terminal Emulation, TTY connections, to Main Frames and the like.
I hate to say this but it is still in wide use and will be till the main frames are gone.

[Puke]

outside of the mainframe world, some of the KVM makers are using it as part of an escape-sequence to bring either switch between montiors or bring up a menu for the KVM system.

its also a safe bet for an unused key if you are looking to program a macro or something. but if you try to use that as justification for a key, its really just quibbling.

[Gil Hamilton]

I know with DOS, when you listed a dir it would show them all real quick 'till it got to the bottom of the list. Then what you were left with was the Last several of the list which would fit according to how many rows your monitor was set up to view. I know there was also a key command in the dir request -have since forgotten it- to keep it so you could look at the dir a page at a time.

[Jmenschenfresser]

dir/p or w or wp or something like that....been so long since I used dos for anything other than running programs.