4 ms·

And the manufacturers are in a quest to remove as many keys as they can from the keyboard. Like you can hardly find any light laptop today with page up/down key

by cm2187 10mo ago

And the manufacturers are in a quest to remove as many keys as they can from the keyboard. Like you can hardly find any light laptop today with page up/down keys anymore. Why?.... Haven't these guys heard of keyboard shortcuts?

arccy 10mo ago
don't you like doing finger contortions to use all the modifier keys?
- cm2187 10mo ago
  I think it is the single most convincing proof that we are being secretly replaced by lizard people with 8 fingers!
  - AdrianB1 10mo ago
    8 fingers to each of the 4 hands, to be clear :)
- gerdesj 10mo ago
  You probably didn't grow up with horrors like the WordPerfect function key strip or being faced with a keyboard like that on the ZX80/81/Speccy etc.
  - sixtyj 10mo ago
    Yes, it's a miracle that after 40 years of typing every day, my fingers still work. But that may be a biased view on my part; there may be lots of programmers out there with arthritis in their fingers, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other occupational diseases.
- OptionOfT 10mo ago
  They aren't always the same: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110809-00/?p=9943 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110809-00/?p=99... Also, even when they are the same, on certain laptops you literally hit the key-rollover problem.
markus_zhang 10mo ago
Oh yeah, they sometimes put page up and down on up and down which infuriates me very much. There are other issues like less USB ports, but overall quality is poor comparing to MacBooks.
userbinator 10mo ago
I suspect it's gradual cost-cutting. At the manufacturing scales they're operating with, even one keyswitch adds up.
ack_complete 10mo ago
Worse than that, there's no consistency in Fn+key shortcuts. Recently acquired an HP Ergonomic Keyboard as a replacement for a broken Sculpt, only to find out that it literally cannot send Ctrl+Break -- there's no key for it, no Fn+key shortcut for it and the remapping software doesn't simulate it properly.
- intrasight 10mo ago
  Buy the keyboard you want. There are plenty of good ones.
  - OJFord 10mo ago
    They're talking about laptops, rarely any choice besides ANSI/ISO; maybe a few countries' accents and layouts of the latter.
    - ack_complete 10mo ago
      The keyboard I was mentioning isn't a laptop keyboard, actually, but laptop keyboards tend to be in a slightly better spot as the major vendors typically have Fn shortcuts for the missing keys, like Fn+B for Break, and they also document them in the user guides. Detached keyboards seem to be more of a wild west, especially when they target multiplatform -- and it's always the stuff they don't document that screws you.
VerifiedReports 10mo ago
Nothing tops Apple's infantile refusal to put a (real) Delete key on their laptops. Instead, they have a Backspace key mislabeled "delete." When the Eject key became obsolete, Apple had a perfect opportunity to fix this omission with essentially no effort. NOPE. Meanwhile, everybody else managed to have a proper Delete key on their laptops.
- joshka 10mo ago
  A hill that I'll die on is that Apple's terminology is more correct than PC terminology for this. Backspace makes sense if you see the computer as a fancy typewriter. Delete makes sense if you consider the actions from first principles. Consider the various forms of deletion (forward, backward, word, file deletion, etc.) Each of these just has a modifier key in Apple's way of thinking. (None, Fn, Option, Cmd) which makes complete sense when viewed against how consistent it is with the whole set of interface design guidelines for Apple software. The only reason that this doesn't make sense is that it's incompatible with your world view brought from places with different standards. They will never "fix" this as there's just nothing to fix.
  - Findecanor 10mo ago
    > Backspace makes sense if you see the computer as a fancy typewriter. Backspace on a typewriter only moved the position (~cursor) back one space. Hence why its symbol is the same as the left arrow key's. Backwards Delete was a separate additional key, if the typewriter even had one, and its symbol was a cross inside an outlined left-arrow: ⌫. Current Apple keyboard has this symbol on the "Backspace" key in some regions instead of the text "delete", but older ones did have the left arrow. Apple calling it "Delete" goes back to Apple II. Many other older computer platforms also called it "Delete". DEC used the ⌫ symbol.
    - rzzzt 10mo ago
      At least you don't have to type the same letters while holding a thin tape over your screen to erase them! Apple also had separate Return and Enter symbols on keyboards for a while, which also sounds like typewriter territory but their intended use was a bit different: https://creativepro.com/a-tale-of-two-enter-keys/ https://creativepro.com/a-tale-of-two-enter-keys/
crazygringo 10mo ago
I dunno, I actually prefer Fn+Up/Dn. I just find it more logical, and it feels standard to me now. I press them surely hundreds of times a day and have no problem with it.
devilbunny 10mo ago
It’s been a while since I shopped for one, but a Thinkpad X1 Carbon gen 13 starts at about 1 kg and has a pretty full keyboard.

by cm2187 10mo ago

arccy 10mo ago

don't you like doing finger contortions to use all the modifier keys?

cm2187 10mo ago
I think it is the single most convincing proof that we are being secretly replaced by lizard people with 8 fingers!
- AdrianB1 10mo ago
  8 fingers to each of the 4 hands, to be clear :)
gerdesj 10mo ago
You probably didn't grow up with horrors like the WordPerfect function key strip or being faced with a keyboard like that on the ZX80/81/Speccy etc.
- sixtyj 10mo ago
  Yes, it's a miracle that after 40 years of typing every day, my fingers still work. But that may be a biased view on my part; there may be lots of programmers out there with arthritis in their fingers, carpal tunnel syndrome, and other occupational diseases.
OptionOfT 10mo ago
They aren't always the same: https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110809-00/?p=9943 https://devblogs.microsoft.com/oldnewthing/20110809-00/?p=99... Also, even when they are the same, on certain laptops you literally hit the key-rollover problem.

markus_zhang 10mo ago

Oh yeah, they sometimes put page up and down on up and down which infuriates me very much. There are other issues like less USB ports, but overall quality is poor comparing to MacBooks.

userbinator 10mo ago

I suspect it's gradual cost-cutting. At the manufacturing scales they're operating with, even one keyswitch adds up.

ack_complete 10mo ago

Worse than that, there's no consistency in Fn+key shortcuts. Recently acquired an HP Ergonomic Keyboard as a replacement for a broken Sculpt, only to find out that it literally cannot send Ctrl+Break -- there's no key for it, no Fn+key shortcut for it and the remapping software doesn't simulate it properly.

intrasight 10mo ago
Buy the keyboard you want. There are plenty of good ones.
- OJFord 10mo ago
  They're talking about laptops, rarely any choice besides ANSI/ISO; maybe a few countries' accents and layouts of the latter.
  - ack_complete 10mo ago
    The keyboard I was mentioning isn't a laptop keyboard, actually, but laptop keyboards tend to be in a slightly better spot as the major vendors typically have Fn shortcuts for the missing keys, like Fn+B for Break, and they also document them in the user guides. Detached keyboards seem to be more of a wild west, especially when they target multiplatform -- and it's always the stuff they don't document that screws you.

VerifiedReports 10mo ago

Nothing tops Apple's infantile refusal to put a (real) Delete key on their laptops. Instead, they have a Backspace key mislabeled "delete." When the Eject key became obsolete, Apple had a perfect opportunity to fix this omission with essentially no effort. NOPE. Meanwhile, everybody else managed to have a proper Delete key on their laptops.

joshka 10mo ago
A hill that I'll die on is that Apple's terminology is more correct than PC terminology for this. Backspace makes sense if you see the computer as a fancy typewriter. Delete makes sense if you consider the actions from first principles. Consider the various forms of deletion (forward, backward, word, file deletion, etc.) Each of these just has a modifier key in Apple's way of thinking. (None, Fn, Option, Cmd) which makes complete sense when viewed against how consistent it is with the whole set of interface design guidelines for Apple software. The only reason that this doesn't make sense is that it's incompatible with your world view brought from places with different standards. They will never "fix" this as there's just nothing to fix.
- Findecanor 10mo ago
  > Backspace makes sense if you see the computer as a fancy typewriter. Backspace on a typewriter only moved the position (~cursor) back one space. Hence why its symbol is the same as the left arrow key's. Backwards Delete was a separate additional key, if the typewriter even had one, and its symbol was a cross inside an outlined left-arrow: ⌫. Current Apple keyboard has this symbol on the "Backspace" key in some regions instead of the text "delete", but older ones did have the left arrow. Apple calling it "Delete" goes back to Apple II. Many other older computer platforms also called it "Delete". DEC used the ⌫ symbol.
  - rzzzt 10mo ago
    At least you don't have to type the same letters while holding a thin tape over your screen to erase them! Apple also had separate Return and Enter symbols on keyboards for a while, which also sounds like typewriter territory but their intended use was a bit different: https://creativepro.com/a-tale-of-two-enter-keys/ https://creativepro.com/a-tale-of-two-enter-keys/

crazygringo 10mo ago

I dunno, I actually prefer Fn+Up/Dn. I just find it more logical, and it feels standard to me now. I press them surely hundreds of times a day and have no problem with it.

devilbunny 10mo ago

It’s been a while since I shopped for one, but a Thinkpad X1 Carbon gen 13 starts at about 1 kg and has a pretty full keyboard.