The Technology Vent and Rant Thread

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

Attachment 214966

I guess I hold down the alt key with my toe.

I don't do bookkeeping or other activities that use a numeric pad, so I bought a keyboard (Cherry Stream) without. The mouse sits where the num pad would be.

Also because of AltGr and Compose (which is tap, not hold down) I'd not need Alt Codes.

Some compose key sequences or AltGr do use Shift:
AltGr & Shift ÁΩẂÉ®ŦÝÚÍÓÞ

Capital/UC Greek is Compose G <key> Ω vs Compose g <key> ω

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Excessively large Right Shift instead of another character key.

Diminishing space bar due to MS Ego: two window keys, menu key and now they want a co-pilot key. MS should have just reused Scroll Lock and Pause/Break keys and made it an option. Not used those for 30 years?

The Insert Key could optionally be the (stupid) Co-pilot key. Hardly used it in 30 years.

Personally I reprogram Caps Lock as Compose and if I really want Caps Lock, I press both Shift.

The USA Keyboards that have one character key less, or even no AltGr.

Keyboards sold claiming to be UK, but have a key missing (really US keyboards with UK legends on the keycaps).

Keyboards with no lights (Scroll, Num, Caps)

IBM for basing the PC keyboard (1980-1981) on a 1928 teleprinter layout derived from the 19th C. typewriters that invented " and ' instead of “ ” and ‘ ’ because the number of keys was limited (The typewriters also often doubled up on 0 O and I 1). Mechanical typewriters do need a Shift Lock, which does CapsLock and punctuation instead of numbers. The Carriage is too heavy!

Text entry should not accept Tab. It and Shift Tab should be navigation (maybe per word on text), not a tab character. Only mechanical typewriters should have tabs (you set the tab stops for start of each column or margin.

Useless ALT GR key on a UK keyboard instead of it being another ALT key.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Quoth

Keyboards with no lights (Scroll, Num, Caps)

No light for Num Lock and Caps Lock causes me loads of grief. I almost never use either but sometimes accidently hit one or the other going for something else and don't notice right away.

Caps lock used to be handy when some fortran compilers still enforced upper case for keywords and I still programmed in fortran.

[j.p.s]

Originally Posted by Renate

One of the stupidest decisions ever was to use Tab a character for GNU make.

Tab in make predates the GNU project.

The originator of make regretted it early on but decided that the installed base of 6 sites made it too late to change.

[ownedbycats]

Originally Posted by j.p.s

No light for Num Lock and Caps Lock causes me loads of grief. I almost never use either but sometimes accidently hit one or the other going for something else and don't notice right away.

On Windows, there's a accessibility setting called Toggle Keys that can play a sound for caps/num/scroll lock is pressed.

[BetterRed]

Originally Posted by Renate

. . .

Microsoft (surprisingly) used to have a nice quality, quiet, clean design for a keyboard.
They sold the design to Incase and stopped making them themselves.
https://www.incase.com/collections/p...desktop-900-eu

I had one of those, having to replace batteries every month or so was annoying. Eventually the transceiver fell out with the keyboard, so I bought the wired version - I'm using it now. The paint has worn off half the keycaps.

I cripple unmodified CapsLock and NumLock and F1 with AHK:

CapsLock::return
NumLock::return
F1::return

I like the layout of the MS Surface Pro KB, not sure I'd like chicklet keys though, and I definitely don't like the price. Not sure it's still available, it's targeted at Surface Studio users, which are few and far...

BR

[cc_in_oh]

I've been using a Logitech G105 for years. My typing is horrifically bad and the 18 macro keys are a godsend.

Originally Posted by Renate

Logitech used to (maybe?) be half decent but now it seems to be over-priced junk.
I bought a clickety-clackety, not cheap Logitech keyboard and returned it within five minutes.
And usually I just "suck it up" when I do a stupid purchase.
But not that time.

Microsoft (surprisingly) used to have a nice quality, quiet, clean design for a keyboard.
They sold the design to Incase and stopped making them themselves.
https://www.incase.com/collections/p...desktop-900-eu
But it's still not available.

Right now I'm using a $10 piece-of-junk wired keyboard that only has two things going for it:
1) Numeric keyboard
2) Rectangular Enter key

[Renate]

Originally Posted by ownedbycats

On Windows, there's a accessibility setting called Toggle Keys that can play a sound for caps/num/scroll lock is pressed.

I built a custom volume knob which mounts on the underside of my desk.
One of the things that annoyed me with the standard ToggleKeys is that if you had the volume way up, then the Toggle Keys would blast you.
Since my volume knob is a "keyboard" it gets all the keyboard LED messages.
I just put a little speaker in which makes the same tones:

2000 Hz square wave 100 mS
 500 Hz square wave 100 mS

[Quoth]

Originally Posted by JSWolf

Useless ALT GR key on a UK keyboard instead of it being another ALT key.

The altgr allows á é í ó ú on UK Windows. Also needed for Spanish, French etc.

On Linux, altgr gives alternate characters for almost every character.

The US basic layout on a US Keyboard on Windows is almost broken. You need the US International map and an AltGr key on a US Keyboard, unless you are going to type like it's 1928.

Spanish is widely used in USA.

Many people's names have accents.

ANY keyboard for Windows or Linux without an AltGr key is stupid. Only very old ones or stupid ones even for USA don't have AltGr.

If you are lucky then you might be able to simulate AltGr with Control and Alt (or sometimes only right Alt and Right Control), then Á É Í Ó Ú needs four keys at once!

Also while we are ranting:
USA is less than 13% of world population. Why is the regional default for almost everything out of the box = USA. The stuff isn't even made there. Almost no-one else uses Letter Size (A4 is worldwide & double is A3, half is A5), USA format dates or imperial measures. Or the dumb USA Keyboard layout.

[JSWolf]

Originally Posted by Quoth

The altgr allows á é í ó ú on UK Windows. Also needed for Spanish, French etc.

On Linux, altgr gives alternate characters for almost every character.

The US basic layout on a US Keyboard on Windows is almost broken. You need the US International map and an AltGr key on a US Keyboard, unless you are going to type like it's 1928.

Spanish is widely used in USA.

Many people's names have accents.

ANY keyboard for Windows or Linux without an AltGr key is stupid. Only very old ones or stupid ones even for USA don't have AltGr.

If you are lucky then you might be able to simulate AltGr with Control and Alt (or sometimes only right Alt and Right Control), then Á É Í Ó Ú needs four keys at once!

Also while we are ranting:
USA is less than 13% of world population. Why is the regional default for almost everything out of the box = USA. The stuff isn't even made there. Almost no-one else uses Letter Size (A4 is worldwide & double is A3, half is A5), USA format dates or imperial measures. Or the dumb USA Keyboard layout.

US Keyboard layout is good. I've never once wished I had an Alt GR key. I have used Alt on the right many times.

[Renate]

I think that the biggest problem with the AltGR is the "one size fits all" philosophy.
In some languages (like French) there isn't simply one variant of a letter.
If I want to hit a "special E" there are two variants, 'é' and 'è'.
In other languages (like German) there is only one "special" letter per letter.
If I'm typing German I'd like to type AltGR-a for 'ä' but I have to use 'q' because 'a' is already taken.

[John F]

Originally Posted by Quoth

...

USA is less than 13% of world population. ...

A lot less?

[John F]

Oh no, the Ministry of Transport says I have an unpaid toll, and I missed the 24 hour deadline.

[DNSB]

Originally Posted by John F

A lot less?

Quite a bit less at 4.2%. The world population is around 8.2 billion people and the USA is 346.8 million so just over 4%. The numbers used were actually 346,836,337 and 8,215,169,417 estimated as of April 5, 2025. 13% would be about 1 billion not quite in the area of India or China (~1.4 billion) but getting close.

[ownedbycats]

It ignores "AI-free" even enclosed in quotes.