Hard Light Productions Forums

Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: aldo_14 on July 17, 2003, 04:04:47 pm

Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: aldo_14 on July 17, 2003, 04:04:47 pm
I bought a new keyboard. ...cheap, but neat (about 23 quid with a mouse).... anyways, it has a scrollwheel on the right side.  Above the scrollwheel, it has a set of hotkeys for forward and back on IE.  in particular, the 'back' hotkey is exactly 1.75inches from the backspace key.  ( And takes longer to use because of the wrapper software for the keyboard......)


This amuses me.  A bit.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Grey Wolf on July 17, 2003, 05:38:31 pm
At least the buttons on your keyboard work :p
I have an old multi-function keyboard from Gateway, and the driver is incompatible with XP, so there are abot 12 buttons at the top of my keyboard that do absolutley nothing.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Petrarch of the VBB on July 17, 2003, 05:53:08 pm
Sorry about the ever-so-slight derailment, but can you still get AT keyboards anywhere?

My old PC doesn't have a P/S2 port.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Stryke 9 on July 17, 2003, 06:45:33 pm
New keyboards are an almost total waste of money. There's nothing you can do to a keyboard that can't be fixed with superglue, a wire bridge, and a Swiss army knife.

Also, yeah, they generally come with idiot keys. At least they haven't gone so far as to emulate Macs and put the power button on the top.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: castor on July 17, 2003, 07:21:06 pm
The 'sleep' key is another winner - got it here next to the 'pause/break', and when hit (accidentally, why else) tends to 'sleep' the system for good..

Ergonomics any one? well, maybe within the next 100 years..

(yes, i do understand the massive R&D effort it'd take to place them harmful keys a half an inch farther a way, so i'm really not complaining)
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Stryke 9 on July 17, 2003, 07:26:38 pm
That's what they made flathead screwdrivers for, man. One good pry and you don't have to worry about it.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Kamikaze on July 17, 2003, 07:38:44 pm
*still has a 3 year old dell quietkey and doesn't deal with those ****-keys*  :)
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: castor on July 17, 2003, 08:09:27 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9
One good pry and you don't have to worry about it.

Ah yes, the general solution to every hardware problem under the sun :D

Might try that next time the modder in me rises its ugly head.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Taristin on July 17, 2003, 08:21:01 pm
Useless keys? I have 4.

Power -  I progged win2k to use it as a hibernate button
Sleep - Used as a backup for the power button
Wake Up - No idea. Doesn't do anything.
Turbo - The ultimate oddity. Sticks out next to my right shift button, but is more useless than a priest's cock.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Admiral LSD on July 17, 2003, 09:49:21 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Stryke 9
Also, yeah, they generally come with idiot keys. At least they haven't gone so far as to emulate Macs and put the power button on the top.


heh, Windows supports that and has done since 98 (so your beloved POS Win2k isn't immune either) but unlike the Windows key, which appeared on MS keyboards months before Windows 95 was released, the Power key, hasn't appeared on any MS keyboard produced since Windows 98 including my Internet Keyboard Pro which is a pain because I really want to map my motherboard Keyboard Power-On feature to something other than Ctrl-F1...
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Stryke 9 on July 17, 2003, 10:08:48 pm
So it supports it. Only nobody is dumb enough to take advantage of the fact that they added on that piece of functionality just in case, so it really doesn't matter.


Go on, ask me if I care.
Title: Re: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: StratComm on July 17, 2003, 10:52:09 pm
Quote
Originally posted by aldo_14
I bought a new keyboard. ...cheap, but neat (about 23 quid with a mouse).... anyways, it has a scrollwheel on the right side.  Above the scrollwheel, it has a set of hotkeys for forward and back on IE.  in particular, the 'back' hotkey is exactly 1.75inches from the backspace key.  ( And takes longer to use because of the wrapper software for the keyboard......)


This amuses me.  A bit.


The Logitech one???  I've got it in front of me.  I don't ever use the wheel, and the F-Lock is god awefully annoying, but otherwise I like it.  About the best feeling keyboard I've seen in a while.  And I set up computer labs for a living, so I see a lot of keyboards ;)
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Bobboau on July 18, 2003, 12:18:30 am
"It's not stupid, it's advanced"
:D
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Petrarch of the VBB on July 18, 2003, 04:21:46 am
The power key is the bane of my life.
With it being placed where pause should be, I'm forever switching my machine off while playing Total Annihilation.:mad:
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: diamondgeezer on July 18, 2003, 08:23:43 am
My power key is about half an inch from F12. Makes Dues Ex a bloody rollercoaster ride of rebooting fun... interestingly, you can use the Windows display settings to disable the power-on function of the key but not the power-off. Grr...
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: YodaSean on July 18, 2003, 08:49:13 am
i have some weird 10 year old thing my by a "zeos"(with a nifty symbol over the o).  And it doesn't have a windows key :yes:
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: ZylonBane on July 18, 2003, 10:26:31 am
Remap the scan code (http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&th=c2d40510f52df790&seekm=3C86ABC3.5060403%40slo.net&frame=off).
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: diamondgeezer on July 18, 2003, 11:14:41 am
Hmm... we never did find out he got it working or not...
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Woolie Wool on July 18, 2003, 11:33:42 am
Quote
Originally posted by Petrarch of the VBB
Sorry about the ever-so-slight derailment, but can you still get AT keyboards anywhere?

My old PC doesn't have a P/S2 port.


You should cosider trading in your PC.:lol:

As for the turbo button on RT's keyboard, that has something to do with really, really, REALLY old computers (late '80s).
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: CP5670 on July 18, 2003, 12:19:35 pm
I remember seeing those turbo buttons quite commonly on older pre-pentium machines; they made everything go at double speed or something like that.

And yeah, that sleep button used to get on my nerves on my older keyboard. I never understood the point of that whole sleep feature; it only results in locking up the computer and requiring a restart.

They have all this junk on the keyboards but not the one set of buttons that would actually be useful, a volume control thing; I have only seen some keyboards with those and you have to keep the keyboard software running in the background to use them unlike the other buttons.

Also, does anyone know what the "SysRq" thing on the print screen key is? Sounds like a leftover from the DOS days to me, but I'm not sure exactly what it does.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Admiral LSD on July 18, 2003, 01:47:09 pm
If it's anything like the keyboard I have here the Turbo buttons change the rate at which data is sent to the PC from the keyboard, it has nothing to do with the speed of the PC like the old case Turbo buttons did.

As for sleep locking up your computer, that only happens if you're running a crap OS like Win9x (particularly Win98, that had lots of problems with Power Management), my machine used to go in and out of standby just fine under Win2k (back when I actually ran that POS) and still does under XP.
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: HotSnoJ on July 18, 2003, 02:16:39 pm
Quote
Originally posted by Grey Wolf 2009
At least the buttons on your keyboard work :p
I have an old multi-function keyboard from Gateway, and the driver is incompatible with XP, so there are abot 12 buttons at the top of my keyboard that do absolutley nothing.
I love the gateway keyboard my mom has with her computer. :D I just wish I could get one like that that didn't effect my games. :doubt:
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: redsniper on July 18, 2003, 02:26:14 pm
Quote
Originally posted by CP5670
They have all this junk on the keyboards but not the one set of buttons that would actually be useful, a volume control thing; I have only seen some keyboards with those and you have to keep the keyboard software running in the background to use them unlike the other buttons.


I've got a remote control for my speakers :thepimp:
As for my keyboard, I've got a nice, old-fashioned, carpal tunnel syndrome inducing Dell QuietKey with no useless buttons
Title: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: Grey Wolf on July 18, 2003, 02:27:40 pm
I really wish I could get the buttons to work. I want the volume control keys back :(
Title: Re: Re: Stupidity of modern technology
Post by: TheVirtu on July 19, 2003, 02:20:04 am
Quote
Originally posted by StratComm


The Logitech one???  I've got it in front of me.  I don't ever use the wheel, and the F-Lock is god awefully annoying, but otherwise I like it.  About the best feeling keyboard I've seen in a while.  And I set up computer labs for a living, so I see a lot of keyboards ;)


This is the keyboard I bought yesterday, I like the keyboard too, and I agree I hated that F key thing, I pressed F2 for a while wondering what the hell...its not working...didnt realize I had to have the F lock on :)

I just relinked the buttons on the top to get to get easy access to things (IE. Trillian, Archspace, SSC website)

Got a new optical mouse too (Microsoft :P ) Its REALLY nice to get away from ball mouses.

[EDIT: Damn spelling errors]