Scroll Lock - The Secret Key THEY Don't Want You to Press!
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- Опубліковано 4 січ 2022
- Everyone has seen it, most of us have one, but what the heck does the Scroll Lock key do and why is there? What is its purpose? What are its origins? Dave reports in this brief segment from the front seat of the Truthmobile, his 1970 GMC Sierra Grande Custom Camper, a two-owner, all-original big-block 402 with almost every option available.
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Finally, a guy sitting in his truck who knows what he's talking about.
@ 02:20 Mirror reflected 20/20
Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm.
I have maybe 25/20. Right eye is def the dom.
I mean basically all id want is the capacity to disarm the nukes on my channel since im assuming if I added reshade to a toggleable key itself like this video is implying would solve the problem but at immense annoyance as you have to also dismiss the reshade pop up on first install. Its concentrating in DX9 because something Nvidia changed I caught wind of researching Yakuzas remakes and their annoying nuance. Posted solution to the mod that broke without inspectors extensions on their forum. Maybe Jensen took my joke about cloning him and his glasses too seriously.
Ill end up making bots in C++ or perhaps faster one day for these purposes. Rate of improvement is the competitive advantage. To me, its more sport. Looking for people to help. Not just those to update my channel view counter wondering what all this irrelevant fuzs is aboat.
Id like to see a thread scheduler patch for windows 10. If only devs told us how many cores can be used before context switching. It would be as easy as leaving a transparent single or double digit number. Then all microsoft would have to do is have an archive of known CPUs since aliens dont just show up and transplant theirs into markets, or failing detection of whats a logical processor, what is not, ignoring intels current architecture, you could tell it what to expect. The only reason this hasnt been done is probably the same reason people havent been interested in giving us monster caches if we by standard have a very high probability of wasting it. Windows 11 hits, now you see Zen 3D.
Makes sense. Cache is tied to a core, but now windows thinks its a great idea to jump across to another core not even connected to the logical processor which of course does not have that specific data being done just sitting in cache ready to go. Im compared to you a tech tard, but the process lasso UI doesnt lie. The visual confirms game logic loads spread across cores when this depending on software and CPU type combinations leads to undesirable performance penalization that would be brain dead easy to avoid. Some devs do this out of the box. Like Doom 2016 on FX series CPUs. It knows the trash that 8 core 4 FPUs have to offer. The Witcher 3 eventually evolved a brain as well. It was pretty shocking because this is very very rare. Another game that flat out ignores your inputs is one that probably needs that and God personally to intervene for it not to be complete disasterdom. Wolfenstein a New Order. I remember trying that POS on a 6 core FX series. Turn back. Zen 3D might actually make the blatant draw call raytracing resolution wall more interesting. That depends on how smart the devs use of the CPU is considering its limitations. Perhaps its using 8 threads, but in such a janky fashion being copy and paste from the consoles, it was an offensively lazy "effort". Im not even sure whats going on beyond I hate when products like this discredit the power levels of John.
Scroll Lock was essentially a prank key at an office I worked in. For data security, office policy was that you were supposed to lock your computer if you stepped away from it. So if someone was away from their pc and it was unlocked then pressing the scroll lock button was one of the possible consequences. We used excel extensively, and coming back to find your computer behaving totally weirdly when trying to cursor around caught all of us out the first time it happened to us.
Idea: a device called the “keyboard gremlin”: a microcontroller that sits between the keyboard and the computer like a tiny USB adapter. It passes through 95% of keypress events unmodified, but randomly changes 5%.
Wait...
You mean scroll lock and the other keyboard "lock" keys need you to be logged in? That doesn't make sense surely? I mean you can use caps lock when entering your password to log in.
So why can't you activate scroll lock when someone does have the PC locked? And it would then still be active when they log in/unlock the PC?
@@DGneoseeker1 it was to stop people leaving their computers unlocked. Doing it to locked computers would be considered inappropriate
@@orthotron This wasn’t where I worked, but I did hear of a story where someone added an auto replace to a user’s dictionary where typing the word “the” resulted in “the f*cking” (without the censoring)
Sounds like my brother in-law using Ctrl+Atl+arrow when his colleagues left their PC's unattended. More a prank than security.
Tbf, himself and one other ended up teaching the other dozen staff in the office a fair bit about unknown stuff, by making them learn how to fix pranks xD
I'm old enough to have: learned to type on a mechanical typewriter, then "re-learned" on an electric, then eventually discovered the marvels of PC word-processing. I think I did at one point actively use the scroll-lock functionality as part of crunching through massive spreadsheet work. But as began to watch this video, I had forgotten that and had a blank as to what Scroll-Lock actually did. Now reminded, I have come full circle twice: a figure eight!
Then you must be 70 - 80 years old
@@jagheterhopp old people exist
Cool
@@jagheterhoppI'm only 45 and learned on a typewriter myself and did all my school work on them so they haven't been gone that long
In most modern applications including Chrome browser, you can hold down the Shift key and use the scroll wheel on the mouse to scroll the page left or right (provided that it's wider than what fits the screen).
Yes, you are 100% correct at 2:58 as to the purpose of the Scroll Lock key.
Actually, Scroll Lock was on IBM mainframe terminals (3277) long before microcomputers were a thing (even before the Imsai 8080 and the Altair 8080).
I suspect they ended up standard on modern PCs because IBM put the Scroll Lock key on their original IBM PC keyboard to be compatible with mainframes for some applications and it just became a legacy feature.
I worked for quite a few years on an HP 2645A terminal. The 2645A had an exemplary keyboard for layout and tactile feel. The screen was approximately the same ratio as modern HD screens rather than the usual 3x4 Academy ratio common in CRTs back then. That made an 80 character 24 line display look very nice and with the correct option ROMs installed, you got fully formed characters with lower case descenders.
I am unaware of any keyboards within the 3270 series with such a key. I admit I never had much contact with them. But I did with the 3100 series and the 5250 line as well. Never saw one of those with scroll lock key either. I don't suppose you remember any details? I'm genuinely curious. I just do not remember any terminals before the introduction of the PC that has such a key as a separate function.
As a blind computer user, I enjoy learning everything related to keyboard shortcuts. After all, even though screen reading programs can speak what is under the mouse cursor, we tend to use the keyboard much more. So I surely enjoyed these informations on scroll lock!
i feel so bad for you having to be blind and trying to use a computer it must be hard
@@ChrisPlayzBLOX, everything in life is a matter of adaptation. The only basic difference is that instead of looking at information, you listen to them as long, of course, as the screen reader recognizes and describes them! So nothing to feel bad about.
@@supermalavox Do you use a regular old computer or a special keyboard where the keys are designed to feel different?
Dude, you're amazing. I can't even comprehend how you write in this comment section.
And in a very special way you see more than us. If you interact with people you only rely on hearing them. While many of us are cursed to focus way to much on how we look and miss to often how people really are. to a big portion because we don't listen. I wish you the best life, because just by being the way you are, you give people hope. thanks mate.
A blind guy browsing the internet? Never saw that one coming. 😎
I use Scroll Lock and Pause / Break as mute buttons in voice chat apps. I'm glad they exist because they're perfectly suited to this purpose; otherwise unused and located away from keys you might actually want to press. And Scroll Lock provides a nice light to tell me when I'm muted.
The reason they don't set caps lock on or off with password fields is because the caps lock is a low level system function and doing so would allow applications dangerous levels of access. You can normally turn caps lock on and off unless the system is completely frozen.
I've done that with one of those keys before. Though I prefer using a mouse button as push-(and hold)-to-talk -- usually one of the two side buttons my mouse has, since my thumb isn't doing much else. Though I have one program that can't "see" these buttons, and uses Middle Mouse instead.
That's awesome. I wish that had occurred to me months ago.
In most programming Break works like Ctrl-Z (?) to Break (or halt) the program and return to wait state. (Break works differently to Esc(ape) in terms of where the programme crashes and sets back to.
May I ask how did you change the behaviour of those keys like that?
@@Specht77 maybe AutoHotKey? I have my middle mouse button set to generate ScrollLock, and my AHK script intercepts this and, on a short click, it does various functions based on the window underneath the mouse pointer (e.g. Back a page in browsers, up a level in Explorer, clicks the X on Google Image Search Opened Image)
If I hold it down, however, my script does send Middle Mouse Down, giving me fast scrolling in web pages, until I release it.
I do a lot of stuff just with Mouse buttons, with lots being Window specific, AHK is very powerful and quite fun to experiment with things.
For example, I made a script that looked for the UA-cam play button, and if the mouse pointer approached it, it would jump to the other side of the button, making it impossible to click Play. My co-worker got very annoyed lol.
In the IBM PC world, during the early PC/XT era, all the lock keys worked solely from the keyboard. The keyboard interface did not support two way communications. All information flowed from the keyboard to the computer. The state of the locks was entirely in the domain of the keyboard itself. Most of them did this through on board logic controllers, however there are the odd keyboards that used actual locking keys that stayed in a depressed state upon tapping. This all changed in 1984 with the introduction of the IBM PC/AT. A new protocol was introduced via the addition of a Intel 8042 controller. This provided two way communications allow the PC to change not only the lock state of the keyboard but also allowed independent control of the indicator LEDs. The i8042 is long gone in modern PCs, but is still emulated in current PS/2 and USB interfaces. All this being said the history of all the lock keys goes far beyond the IBM's original PC over 40 years ago.
Dito, yes, I remember having scroll lock, Caps lock, and Num lock that had physical locking down / up states in the early XT days. Cool stuff. Now we're playing Star Citizen with dual joysticks and eye tracking. WOW what a trip.
I love comments like yours. It reminds me how much I have forgotten (most of it for a good reason), and how much we've progressed since then. It also reminds me of 'tools' that showed hard disk activity or even status bars on the keyboard (of which I'm guilty myself, Pascal/Delphi).
Elder-Sage: you are a racist. >keys goes far beyond the IBM's original PC over 40 years ago.
@@gregorysmith8964 As far as I know, the "Scroll Lock" key, the subject of the video, has its origins in the IBM PC. It appears to be unique to that heritage. I am aware of earlier machines with "Hold" or "Pause" keys. In general, however, they behaved more akin to the "Pause/Break" key also present on the PC/XT keyboard. I've looked around at keyboards that existed before 1981 but have yet to find this key.
I'll be more than happy to told otherwise. I'm serious, I would love to know. I'm bit of a computer history buff having been exposed to them by my father in the early 70's. The five year old in me still remembers playing tic tac toe and checkers on a Mohawk Data Science 2400.
@@Elder-Sage IBM helped in the holocaust. Because you know about IBM: it shows you like IBM and what they created (PC). The fact that when they created the pc they were 99 percent white doesn't upset you. Which shows that you are racist. Knowing about computers instead of beat boxes.
At work, when someone accidentally hits Scroll Lock, it basically locks our software from typing or doing anything. Hitting it by accident became such a common annoyance that I eventually took my pocket knife and popped off each Scroll Lock key off of every keyboard in the building.
Same for the F1 key, which starts a very slow process of loading browser and on-line help-page in Autocad. Many keyboards without F1 key here, because it's just too close to the frequently used ESC key. In every program I know, the help can be accessed using the menu so the F1 key is not required.
@@jwstolkYou could have use PowerToys to remap F1 key to the ESC key…
That way, pressing F1 would have had the same effect as pressing ESC. No need to physically damage PCs.
May Allah (S.W.T.) guide you to Islam and bestow upon you His Blessings; Ameen.
This treatment is also very effective on Caps Lock.
You can use a program called SharpKeys to completely remove or reassign the scroll lock key. Mine is always set to open up the calculator
@@NazmusLabs Power toys is overrated. I wasn't able to get a simple remap of F5 to Ctrl + R. It ended up being easier to buy and learn to use a 5-button mouse that I could program.
Thank you Dave for risking your life to bring this information to us.
And you know he's telling something really important! Because he's in his truck!
Big Scroll is gonna be after my man.
Yes.
Looking forward to the deep dive into the "Sys Rq" key next :)
Actually though
I did know about the standard/approved function of ScrollLock, but I'm surprised you didn't mention its (slightly) more modern use: it was the default switch key for nearly all hardware KVM switches from the 90s through the 10s or so, and - though I haven't needed a KVM switch in quite a while - I bet it's still used that way on current models. Drove me nuts when keyboards started popping up without a Scroll Lock key!
(For those unfamiliar: a KVM switch allows you to operate multiple computers with a single Keyboard, Video monitor, and Mouse; you either press a button on the KVM, or more commonly press Scroll Lock on the keyboard, to switch between them. Very useful in server rooms/data centers or on the workbench of a PC builder/repair shop.)
There is an awesome little program that allows you to use your local network as a kvm, it even works between OS's, its called synergy if you are curious. Ive been using it since about 2008, it works great, instead of using a button to switch i use the offscreen feature to seamlessly move between monitors/computers by just moving my mouse, it makes it feel like you are only using one PC.
Virtual/network KVMs are great for normal operations, but if you're a system builder or trying to get a dead machine up and running again there's no substitute for a hardware KVM (except, of course, lining up separate screens/mice/keyboards for each machine; I never had the room for more than two sets at a time, but I could repair up to five machines on my old bench.)
Thanks Dave! Fantastic restoration work on the truck! It's definitely heart-warming to see a 52-year old truck running in a sublime state and looking as if it just rolled off the factory-line!
Before there was Windows, the scroll lock was used to keep the text on the screen from scrolling. It allowed the user to freeze the output before it scrolled off the top of the screen. Yes, you can pipe it into MORE, but that is not always an option.
Oh wow, I did not know this! That makes a lot of sense actually. Wish it still did that.
@@YourFaceIsAlreadyTaken It may work during the BIOS loading sequence depending on the BIOS. This allows you to stop messages before they are scrolled off or replaced.
Pause would usually do the same thing. But pause might interrupt/break a program when scroll lock just paused the program.
The Scroll Lock key did NOT do that under MS-DOS as it shipped. But I created a tiny TSR that made it do so. It would act similarly to Control-S, but also worked in GWBASIC, which Control-S didn't. _Compute!_ magazine included the program on a disk they distributed, but somehow it didn't load properly from the disk's menu.
@@bxdanny Maybe I'm thinking of a different program. It was decades ago. Thank you.
These type of “secret history of… “ are my favourite episodes.
10 minutes is perfect length for a quick fyi type video.
20 minutes also works for more in-depth topics, just more difficult to put it on as soon as you uploaded it.
Thank you Dave. Keep the interesting stories coming ✊
Now he needs to do with SysRq key. It works directly with the kernel in Linux but not sure what its purpose was in Windows/DOS.
A few minutes ain't gonna do it to explain Microsoft Clippy, that gonna take hours
@@mulletman1705 not really, it doesn't take all that long to explain what LSD does.
Seeing that truck cam, I feel like i can now trust your assertions without question
The Pause key is even more mysterious to me. A little story about it:
I had a mentor that tought me many tricks about computers and windows. At one time, we wanted to install Windows Server (some incarnation of it) for a customer. However, we run into some sort of problem with the combination of the hardware, CD key and installation CD that the customer had. We couldn't use it (dunno remember the exact reason).
What we did, IIRC, was to boot up with a working (for the hardware in question) CD. Just enough for the server to boot up the installation CD.
THEN hitting the pause key to pause it all, swap CD's so that we had the CD with the right contents and then resume the whole thing with another press att pause.
I guess it worked due to several things: both installation CDs had similar content (but only wan that we could use for the boot/keycheck) - and the timing when hitting pause - so that the bootloader and whatever was needed was actually loaded.
But it worked, it really did. That way, instead of having no usable installation media until a costly and time consuming new CD arrived, we used what we had at hand and continued.
Determined hacker engineers never give up and will find a solution, no matter how bizarre, to get it to work. Love it.
I can't stop laughing about the conspiracy style intro. Marvelous! And a good piece of history too.
Your accent sounds very "if Canadians were from The South", which I find very amusing.
I haven't used the Scroll Lock key since I gave up programming in DOS. I used it only to keep my screen echo from scrolling off the screen too fast, anyway. My current keyboard doesn't even have a scroll lock key, replacing that position on my keyboard with an LED key that changes the color of my keyboard backlight.
Beautiful truck. I'm not much of an auto guy, but I appreciate the craftsmanship.
Thanks for sharing your truck. Took me back to the '74 GMC Sierra 1500 that was once in the family. The shot of your bed and the wooden lined floor took me back... I had forgotten that they were made like that. Thanks for stirring the memories. Now I have to like the video. Haha.
Utterly convincing Canadian disguise by that guy in the truck. Even his subtitles were in Canadian! Amazing! 😜
The Scroll Lock key actually predates personal computers. While I don't know exactly when it was first implemented, I can confirm that it was present on some dumb terminals connected to mainframes, which we used to develop programs.
When reading pages and pages of programming code, or system dumps, the scroll lock would make it easier to ensure we didn't miss anything; and even made it possible to take breaks and pick up where we left off.
It was carried over onto PC keyboards to allow virtual terminals to do the same thing as a dumb terminal.
Everything else is pretty much what he said
Scroll lock, up and down arrows = page up and pg down keys
I will have to try that with Linux boot screen. Back in those old 286/386 days I could keep up. Remember those turbo on/off buttons?
Sometimes you could set it for a slower clock in the bios.
I don't think that predates PCs. IBM business software from 1986, which is still used in emulation, requires you to press shift+F8 to scroll the screen to the right.
@@customsongmaker I think I remember it on a HP main frame
CRT terminal. It was bit helpful when testing code. Or you could just run it off the paper printer until it was out. Bean counters did not like that. But the paper was good for tracing the flow back to sub routines.
Yeah back in the days before operating systems like Windows, the Scroll Lock let the computer user stop the scrolling of the text screaming past you on the screen so you could read the contents of a disk directory. The RS TRS-80's had them on their keyboards. Our high school had TRS-80s Model IV's in dumb terminal mode with a central computer (also a Model IV) and they all had scroll lock keys.
Your channel popped up in my recommendations and I can't stop watching. I started using "PCs" when my parents bought a C64, and my very first x86 PC I ever owned was a Win95 with Pentium 120MHz and 8MB RAM... and a HUGE 1,2GB hard drive 😂 one thing I figured out very early is, that you never stop learning new (and even old) things in the IT world. The scroll lock function and the F7 option in browsers was something I never knew until I watched this clip. Which is kinda embarassing, since I work as service desk engineer for an IT firm. Then again, most of our customers and users are office workers, they're already happy if the rig boots up properly and the VM doesn't crash every 2 minutes 😄 Thanks for sharing your expertise with us, I will definitely make good use of these tricks and tips and "did you know" parts at work.
Amazing specimen of a truck, Dave. I've lusted for a 1970 Chevy C10 and never even considered a GMC. What a mistake.
Also worth mentioning, just about every KVM switch I've ever seen uses two quick presses of Scroll Lock to send commands to the KVM, likely because of how ubiquitous yet seldom used the Scroll Lock key is.
Good point!
I have an HDMI KVM box that does not use scroll-lock (brand = Ezcoo), but most do, I agree. I once returned a keyboard to the retailer because it lacked this key. It was a cheap Logitech - I guess they were trying to save another few cents.
The ones I've used use double tap on the CTRL key, but I agree that's more prone to accidental activations.
Haha... yeah, I was going to mention that too. I think it's the only time I still use the scroll lock key.
Most of them work for a doubletap of pause or numlock too, some also work on doubletaps of the right shift ctrl or alt
I love hearing the human story behind things we’ve all come across in the world. Thanks for your content Dave!
@@tibettenballs4962 No he wasn't
@@tibettenballs4962stfu
As someone who relies heavily on the Pause|Break key, I am very glad to know what Scroll Lock does.
However, I vaguely recall that Scroll Lock would prevent the document from scrolling in WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS. Unfortunately, I can no longer verify this.
I actually have that exact version of WordPerfect on an old computer, I'll get back to you on that in a little while.
@@ObeseT just here waiting for your verification lol.
what Pause key does?
@@ObeseT what's the result?
@@ObeseTIt's been a while; do you have any updates?
Omg you could consider me a true super nerd but in fact I have never questioned the fact that it have really no clue what scroll lock does! Looking forward to watching this!!❤
The scroll lock led is used on gnome shell to remind the user when setting an alternate input language. The led stays on until the normal input language is reactivated.
I've used the scroll lock LED as a hard drive led (in Linux) when my case lacked one.
woah I'd LOVE that in Windows
Having used Gnome for years on laptops without a scroll lock (and sometimes not even num lock) light, when I first plugged in an external keyboard which had one I was proper spooked by that behaviour
Gnome2 was good.
But it(3,4) degraded to the point that any knockoff (e.g. MATE, Cinnamon, XFCE) is better.
The Ubunutu's Unity was even more short recycled.
echo "1" | sudo tee /sys/class/leds/inputXX::scrolllock/brightness
Just replace XX with the input index and script it. :D Have the script exec from Systemd/OpenRC so it has root permissions on boot. *Alternatively just have the init script accept parameters via a case expression so other scripts can interact with it without root perms by having it read a globally writeable file. slctl {1,0} for on and off and maybe even a blinking function with a variable speed: slctl -b 100 (for 100ms)
I use FL Studio and Scroll Lock has a function, a very useful function in that application. When you play the score, the current position marker moves across the score. Scroll lock controls if the score will scroll to follow the current position marker or not..
Same with Cakewalk. Very useful indeed.
Interesting, I wonder which DAWs use it and which don’t.
props to them, using it as intended!
Eyy, FL gang :)
Oh wow, I didn't know. This is probably why they say to read the manual. In FL Studio I'm very happy that the function that Dave demonstrated in Excel can be activated by holding down the scroll wheel, I use it all the time.
I love the quick getaway gag, when you can see the miter saw in the back.
scroll lock has been my screen record button since FRAPS. I never knew what it was used for, but the little scroll lock indicator has served well as the "recording light" for decades
My favorite part of this whole video has to be the bloopers at the end haha so wholesome...great videos Dave :)
6:50 - The Scroll Lock on Linux is meant to work on TTY, not PTS. To access TTY you need to press Ctrl+Alt+F3 (or other Function key that will switch to TTY, since there are multiple ones by default on every distro configured). Since GNOME Terminal, Konsole, XTerm - or in this matter - WSL is just PTS - it won't work.
I would post link to Stack Overflow about "tty vs. pts" but YT removed this comment with link 2 times already so… WTF UA-cam!
Yup, in Manjaro it's Ctrl+Alt+F1 to F6 by default (for tty1 through tty6). Ctrl+Alt+F1 is the session "behind" your graphical shell, and Ctrl+Alt+F7 returns you to the graphical shell. (Side note: You can sometimes reboot via Ctrl+Alt+Delete in these if the graphical shell gets hung up.)
And yes, I see Scroll Lock pauses displayed input and output in the tty's, but not in the terminal emulator.
@@AaronOfMpls yeah, I'm using Fedora and it's even weirder because under F1 I have login screen and under F2 I have my already logged-in graphical session… :D
M. Plummer was talking about the correct thing, nonetheless. In WSL Ubuntu, the console window on the screen is a kernel virtual terminal device, major number 4, as far as Ubuntu is concerned; and that is what xe tested against scroll lock.
When I play video games, I like to bind rarely-used but very important things to scroll lock; like console commands or taunts, just so it can feel loved.
That truck looks great, even better when you see the frame with the body off. This is something where you and I are alike- my father owned a garage for over 60 years and when I worked there I did everything but paint and automatic transmissions. But I was not patient enough to do an entire body off restoration. My father had the Chevrolet version of that truck, a 1968, blue with the white side panel down the middle instead of along the bottom.
My "issue" with the Scroll Lock key is that, although it's an application choice on what to do with the key, if multiple applications use the scroll lock key and you're using both at the same time, confusion happens where you'd need to toggle the behaviour depending on the application being used.
Let's pretend that FireFox does use Scroll Lock instead of F7 for right now, and lets say you're using Excel. If you have Scroll Lock key on Excel would behave as demonstrated, where the entire workbook is shifted around. Going back to FF, hitting up or down would mean that the cursor key moves up one line at a time, not a page at a time. Switching it off, you get the opposite behaviours.
I've been bitten by this a couple of times. If it wasn't that I like the aesthetic of my keyboard with the scroll lock, I'd rip the mofo off.
You could have state per window, inherited and changed programmatically when a window gains focus. But should you have to press it once for each window? Maybe? Maybe you could have an option to break/reattach the inheritance chain with control scroll lock or something.
Yeah, I wonder about the benefits of having keyboard state at all (caps lock included). Talking about ripping out a key... there's a story in the Steve Jobs biography where he refused to sign a Apple computer unless the owner removed the function keys which Jobs thought were an abomination.
@@MrGoatflakes Windows already does this with numlock in UWP apps.
This is why I use AutoHotkey to control environment context and change/adjust as necessary. Upon first set-up it takes some work, but afterwards any time I need to add a new context I just add 1 line to the my code. It's really not as involved as it seems as it's rarely I need to add a new context.
@@bobthemagicmoose I think caps and numlock are not as much of a problem because you can think of them as actually changing the key press. It's the OS storing state, but that state is (most often) just used to define what virtual key will be read from a key press - so even though it's state outside of the application and under user control, it's reasonably contained.
Scroll lock is essentially a global variable on the OS which can be directly changed by input and with all logic associated to it being handled by each application, so it's a lot leakier.
I do like the idea of having a led on keyboard showing something about the state of a program, but on a "multi-application" environment using scrolllock for that is not reliable either (unless you mirror it's state in application and update on change of focus, maybe? But I think it feels odd when the locks change by themselves)
This is probably a super obscure compliment compared to the stuff you usually get, but I really appreciate the time that was put into making the closed captions accurate. You spelled things correctly, you used proper grammar, you even put in punctuation to help understand the flow of sentences. Thank you so much for that. The effort is not wasted.
Ahh google automatic captions, always so accurate isn't it ? 🤣🤣🤣
6:27 The state of the LOCK keys is kept by the OS, not by the keyboard. The LED indications are controlled by the OS by sending the 0xED code command to the keyboard.
So, it's not possible that there exist a keyboard with a physical indication of the toggle states, because the keyboard would need a mechanism to actuate that physical indication when it receives the 0xED command from the OS.
It's even possible that the LED indicators become out of sync with the state that the OS keeps internally.
A badly written program can have this effect if said program injects programmatic keystrokes of a lock key while at the same time the program is blocking the input queue so that the system doesn't react to the physical keystroke.
There's also the case of VMs and remote desktop programs which must change the keyboard LEDs programmatically in order to show the toggle states of the OS that's currently in focus.
I had a PC (8088) clone that had keyboard lights. The keyboard interface on a PC (not AT) is one-directional so the PC cannot tell anything to the keyboard. That meant they keyboard controlled the light. This caused them to go off sync anytime the program set the numlock on (like calculators). I ended putting black tape over the light.
Indeed, Scroll Lock and Caps Lock are completely controlled by the OS, unlike Num Lock
@@PiddeBas Intresting. I've always wondered about that. Like if you have an external numpad and press NumLock - it doesn't affect the status of your main keyboard and vice versa. Really wish it did. Overall how Windows handles input devices is kind of... extremely bad. Try having multiple keyboards and you know what I mean.
Well, an LED is just a closed circuit at the end of the day. Would it not be possible to put a latch circuit there that would then activate a physical mechanism? Needlessly impractical, but possible
@@KaitouKaiju Indeed I use this to control Xmas light external power supplies for sequencing. See more detailed comment below.
That accent was moving all over the US and Canada just like the selected cell in your Excel sheet demo
I love how you can see the conviction in his hand gestures in the reflection haha
cute how Dave is adopting a southern US accent, but at about twenty seconds sticks in a Canadian "about".
You pronounce "caret" like it's French, but I've always heard it pronounced much like "carrot"
Great explanation of scroll locking.
That intro was great! 🤣
Every video you produce brings me to my younger years when we had no answers to anything; one being the purpose of the scroll lock key.
Beautiful truck Dave, I have a 1966 C-20 that my grandma bought brand new. Someone special ordered it from the factory and ended up not buying it, it has a factory 327 with the 2.02 heads as the castings shows, auto trans, power steering, but no power brakes. I thought that was odd, anyway it hasn't been driven in years the last time it was the starter went out and when a new one was purchased someone for one for the manual trans. Fortunately I caught it in time when someone started telling me about the issue it was having. But I got it to spin over recently now I just have to go through all the consumable parts that use rubber and replace them and she'll be road worthy again. Seeing yours kinda got me fired up to get back to it, so I subbed and hit the bell and yes of course I smashed the like button, lol.
Nice job on the pickup!
Scroll Lock LED is extra useful on Linux (X11 only I think?). It shows current keyboard layout, so when it's English LED is off but when it's Russian, in my case, LED is on.
Sadly my new keyboard doesn't have Scroll Lock LED. :(
That is brilliant, thank you and good to know.
Way back in the dark ages, before PCs, there were video terminals and even Teletype machines. They used XON (Ctl Q) and XOFF (Ctl S) to start and stop printout or display. On some terminals, there was a scroll lock key, which could be used to do the same thing. This function was carried over to some terminal apps on the PC and frequently used on the old dial up BBS systems.
BTW, when I started working in the telecom industry, 50 years ago, I worked as a bench tech overhauling Teletype machines and became *VERY* familiar with the various key codes, both in Baudot and ASCII.
Yeah I was thinking TTY too!
Absolutely enjoyable. Your sense of humor is on point.
I've had clicky, physical lock keys on older keyboards (PS2) or commodore machines. Scroll lock is great for the BIOS info that scrolls past quickly or DOS commands that list too much for the current screen. One other use for scroll lock (also numlock) is KVM switches, so you can jump between computers.
Then you didn't know, as I first learned, the use of ^S to toggle scrolling during that phase.
numlock is always use full for entering long numbers.
yes, older keyboards had lock and release mechanism for the three keys. was very handy for caps lock, as you could tell by feel and sound if you're locking or unlocking caps. they didnt have LED for the keys, only for power.
when you changed the state programmatically, the key had one keystroke it didnt register, so by second keystroke things were back in sync.
Hi David! Nowadays, so many UA-camrs discard the polite way of saying even a short greeting at the beginning of their video. You're clearly not one of those people who just get straight to the point - even though a greeting doesn't require much from anyone, it makes a pleasant impression. Thanks for that! People like this who have discard politeness are one proof that the best book of prophecy in the world, the Bible, is right when it tells us:
"But know this, that in the last days there will be critical times that will be difficult to survive. For men will be lovers of themselves, lovers of money, boasters, proud, scoffers, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, disloyal, having no natural affection. , agreeing to nothing to agreement, slanderers, self-tempered, furious, without the love of goodness, betrayers, headstrong, puffed up with pride, lovers of pleasures rather than lovers of God" (2 Timothy 3:1-4)
I remember! (I'm that old)
And MAN what a sweet GMC! Great job on the restoration!
Beautiful truck, Dave! The attention to OEM detail is amazing. Everything is period correct. Even the batteries have the old style filler vent/filler caps.
For the FOSS Looking Glass Project for Linux VFIO VMs we use the Scroll Lock key to toggle guest mouse and keyboard grab/capture, we selected this key because it's generally never used except for the SysRq commands. If held we also have a bunch of hotkeys to perform various actions. I even had a custom key cap made for my PC to replace the Scroll Lock key with the project logo.
This is like finally finding out what the "middle" pedal on the piano is for, and when to friggin use it !!! I'M NOT WORTHY!!! I'M NOT WORTHY!!! THANK YOU, ILLUSIVE PICK UP DUDE!!! THANK YOU!!!
As someone who watched none of your videos before, the intro really ticked all of the boxes of "Im a conspiracy nut!" down to the cocking gun noises for the tickboxes.
thanks Dave, that just enhanced my life, as sit here recording time series analysis data in my Excel spreadsheet...satisfied customer!
I often use the Caps Lock on with the password fields. Particularly for WiFi passwords where router manufacturers for some reason use mostly upper case letters and numbers. It's nice that it warns me, but it's even nicer that it doesn't force it to be off, as windows far too often believes it's smarter than me x(
In the early days developers allowed the backspace key (visibly destructive, but really non-destructive) when entering passwords...making the backspace character valid. Need I expound on the problems that caused? And to this day passwords are a nightmare...that requires a "trivial" fix. And the fix is not "password manager".
I racked my brain trying to recall whether, in 38 years of doin' the c'pooter soffwarez, I had ever seen scroll lock used and what it did. I'm 100% sure I have seen it, but it would have been back in the 1980s or '90s, and I just don't recall whether it was the behavior described in the video.
I forced myself to take a guess that it would have some sort of behavior analogous to TTY XON/XOFF (ctrl-S/ctrl-Q) which I still commonly use in linux shells to this day. It's entirely possible what I saw was something like that, but in a GUI environment.
Now that I've learned the definitive (MS/Excel, at least) behavior, I realize I really like it and would _love_ to see it added to common editors/IDEs such as Notepad++, IntelliJ, and Eclipse.
Thanks again, Dave! Hey, any chance we can get an audiobook version of your Autism book??? Best wishes!!
Lol the bloopers were awesome. Thanks for all that you do.
Just tried it in a Linux TTY (Debian Bullseye kernel 5.10) and it does pause the scrolling of standard output, but not in a hugely useful way. It does not allow scrolling around in any sense. Enter a command that results in a bunch of lines of output then hit scroll lock while the screen is scrolling and it pauses the output, and you can tap it multiple times to let the screen scroll in short bursts.
While scroll lock is active all key presses are stored in a buffer, so nothing appears to happen at the cursor while scroll lock is active but when you deactivate scroll lock any key presses are released from the buffer [including 'enter' or using up/down cursor keys to move through command history ]
The scroll lock status does not carry between TTY terminals so it can be active in tty4 but inactive in tty5 ie. ctl-c both overrides scroll lock to terminate whatever is running and producing output and deactivates scroll lock.
To add to this, Linux is my daily driver OS and outside of TTY most distributions and desktop environments that I've used do not utilize the scroll lock key. Manjaro with KDE Plasma, the distro I'm currently using, doesn't have the key bound at all by default and pressing it wont even toggle the indicator light on my keyboard.
You can use Shift+Page Up and Shift+Page Down to scroll up and down.
@@baksatibi not in a TTY
@@mytech6779 I thought the standard Linux VTs supported scrolling. You'd probably need to configure a scrollback buffer first, maybe some distros don't. Or maybe it's just a compile-time option. IDK.
@@baksatibi That was removed I think in Kernel >= 5.0
I think Linus suggested using screen or tmux on the tty now instead.
The last time I used the scroll-lock LED was to write data to a shift-register using a light-sensitive resistor, without connecting any wires to the computer. It was a bit slow because from BASIC (yes that long ago), the speed at which the LED can be toggled is limited to the maximum keyboard speed.
Apparently hackers have used the keyboard lights to access air-gapped systems to download data visually into cameras.
@@djrmarketing598And using the power supply. Crazy!!!
Always enjoy and learn on this channel. Really like the precise (and humorous) manner in which the information is conveyed. 10 thumbs up!
I love people who make me feel dumb.
Subbed
Two keys I miss on new keyboards are the clear-line and clear-display which used to be available on hp keyboards. Also on hp keyboards used to be handy to toggle between destructive backspace and a backspace that acted as just a cursor movement.
Was that like holding ctrl+return?
The "insert" key allowed toggling of destructive and non destructive backspace in DOS and some applications and was not limited to HP. Clear line and clear display (clrscrn) were limited to output only and didn't have an effect on anything programmatically (also not limited to HP).
You mean the left arrow?
That would be the one. Rather than having to toggle anything, just hit that left arrow! It's like magic! LOL.@@melody3741
Thanks for letting us in on the 'scroll lock' conspiracy! 😂
Beautiful truck Dave. You are a talented fella for sure. In my retirement I started making scratch built stationary steam engines. Tons of fun and it helps pass those long winters in Upstate NY. Keep up the great work!
One thing I learned playing around with this while watching the video is that if the video is active under the cursor, you can fast-forward or rewind the video using the cursor keys.
I remember having to use this function and Windows 98. My mouse was broke, but I still needed to get the work done. After many presses of the tab key I was able to finish my document. It gave me a new appreciation for commands like Alt f
I had my mouse faling back in the day too. The way i “fixed it” was using mouse on keyboard. There are a funcion on windows 98 where you can control mouse cursor using arrow keys from numeric keyboard. Was a lifesaver until i could grab a new mouse.
Shouldn't be saying this, but I wrote a script that presses scroll lock every 29 minutes, to trick Slack that I'm online during work hours.
Enjoying your videos. Thank You. I will be double 6's in a few days and I still learn something new each day.
Wow, the bed of that truck is beautiful, dude. Lots of pride went into her.
Somewhere since 1975 when I got into computers I have a vague memory of a mechanically locking scroll lock. I've been subjected to so many different brands and types of keyboards in the past 47 years I can't be sure, but it may have been the 1985 ATT 6300 / Olivetti M24 (that keyboard had the best feel of any I have ever used BTW).
Was that the buckling spring with the capacitive sensors and the steel plate in the base?
I vaguely recall witnessing one of those being used as a blunt weapon...
@@SwervingLemon It may have been, but I can't say for sure. Too many years. But when I said "best feel", I didn't mean as a weapon! ;)
@@tsbrownie Oh, yeah, I getcha. They typed really well, too.
They sure don't make them like they used to.
Can we just appreciate that he risks his life just to tell us this information?
Those pick up trucks are dangerous, to be sure.
I was playing X4: Foundations recently and accidentally paused the game. Took a while to realise; the Pause Break key actually *pauses the game.* Was amazing to see!
I'm pretty computer illiterate, but while watching this video, I clicked my left and right cursor keys just to see what would happen. I was surprised that by doing that, I could fast forward or rewind the video 5 seconds per click. I know that is basic stuff for you, but it was helpful to me, thanks. Most of what you talked about is over my head, not ashamed to say, but I learn little tidbits here and there, mostly by accident.
If you google "Keyboard shortcuts for UA-cam" you'll find a whole lot more.
Lol, I love that you still can't quite drop the 'aboat' even when doing a Southern accent. :)
There are a couple settings (one for PS/2 keyboards, and one for USB/HID keyboards) in the registry that will enable forcing a crashdump by holding [CTRL] and tapping [Scroll Lock] twice. Useful for debugging, or if your machine is just badly misbehaving.
Epic. Great content. And I love that spherical LED thing in the background. What a sweet toy.
I use Scroll Lock all the time because half my life is spent in spreadsheets and in layout editors for large sheets.
Regarding F7, users are used to toggling a function per software. That is, the scroll function always starts off in the browser and every time you open a new one, you can use F7 to toggle it, whereas if we use the lock state, it can launch enabled which causes confusion for exactly the reason you mentioned.
Takes me back this. I first used the scroll lock on old IBM 3270s to stop the screen scrolling when showing multi page data. Apart from that I've not come across the need to use except on a kvm. The excel tip is one I did not know so I've left a like and because you've had other good content (especially windows as I used to support it) I've subbed too.
Caps, Num, and Scroll-Lock is always a soft toggle, as even on IBM keyboards (PS/2 protocol) you tell the keyboard to switch on the indicator light or even suppress it. There is no "toggle" inside the keyboard, the keyboard itself does not even "know" if Caps Lock is on, it only knows if it has been told to make Caps Lock being lit.
You are right !
From ages I'm checking if system is responsible by hitting NUM/SCROLL/CAPS
This is however only true from the AT (80286 CPU). The original IBM PC and all 8086/88 systems don't have that fuctionality - the Caps Lock and Num Lock LEDs will toggle on and off as you press them, and only then (if the keyboard even has LEDs, not sure that the original IBM PC keyboard does; later XT clones however definitely did). You can set/reset them by software, but unlike at later computers, it won't affect the LEDs, meaning that the Caps Lock LED may be off but keystrokes will still produce capitals.
French caps lock is a little more interesting.
Also, many keyboards with support for special needs users have locking features on modifier keys - things like shift lock are implemented in hardware.
Love you work Dave, keep it up.
FINALLY! 😂 I have been using computers since 1980 and never knew this. BTW, G'day from a fellow Saskatchewan person (currently living overseas).
One more use of scroll lock: If you use UltraVNC, and are connected to a remote computer, toggle scroll lock on to indicate you want CTRL, ALT, and WInKey combinations to forward to the remote computer instead of being processed locally.
It never occurred to me to find an "unused" key like Scroll Lock or SysRq to use as VirtualBox's host key. I'll have to check if that works later.
I do something called evdev passthrough with a windows virtual machine.
You have several options for keybinds to toggle the input between host and guest; I opted to use the scroll-lock for it, since literally nothing uses it Linux side, and apart from excel, nothing does windows side either.
So really, it's the perfect key.
Took me a while to realize this is poking fun of a specific type of videos on youtube. I'm proud of my youtube algorithm now, for not exposing me to this world of insane people in trucks.
The "tune in next time..." bit got me pretty good, thanks for the laugh and sharing this less common knowledge!
Old Apple keyboards (mid to late 80s) often came with a latching switch for Caps Lock, but I’m not familiar with how early Mac OS handled that in software and whether it was possible to override it somehow. I’m not aware of any off-the-shelf modern keyboards that have latching lock keys, but it should be possible to build one yourself that can run TMK or QMK firmware. Cherry used to make latching switches but apparently they discontinued them in 2015, so sourcing that will be tricky.
On apple keyboards you also close (like ALT + F4) programs by ALTGR + Q - without warning.
So i guess nothing good happen with scroll lock on mac? Something like format hdd or ... ?
_Apple layout ... 1 week was enough for me. No more apple._
The Apple II also had latching switches. Honeywell made many Hall effect switches including some with latching capability.
@@CottonInDerTube Not "ALTGR", "COMMAND". Command + Q = Quit. Command + O = open. Command + H = hide. Command + C = copy. Etc. Over on the PC, "F4", of course, stands for - ummm - oh, it's just arbitrary ... Not that one is necessarily better than the other, it's all a question of what you're used to.
As for caps lock keys, quite a few older apple boards had physically locking keys. Older apple boards had a lot more "smarts" than pc boards at the time, and dealt with maintaining their own state rather than just sending raw keypresses. This was largely to do with the same bus being shared with keyboards, mice, tablets, dongles, trackballs, colour measures, and any number of other devices (well, up to 15 per bus, actually). I have vague memories of a physically latching capslock switch on mainframe boards, but that's a long time ago.
I dont remember those with my Apple II and CL775 Macs hahahaha
Thanks for that video Dave. I always assumed that Scroll Lock did the same as CTRL S and CTRL Q. Since most of my work was don't in a command window or text editor, it didn't matter. I do love finding out the real reason for some of these arcane PC attributes, both hardware and software.
Just semantics, but do you notice how scroll and caps are both a *lock* and a *key* at the same time?
(I don't think @lockpickinglawyer has a bypass video on these yet.)
Truck looks lovely and really unexpected content given the single subject nature of YT videos. Truly a very accomplished man, Dave.🙂
I was going to sub just for that bloopers and the nifty key history second, but then I realized I was already subbed. 👀
Bravo, good sir.
I've never seen a PC keyboard that had latching keys of any kind. Last time I saw a latching key was caps lock from a Macintosh SE/30.
Excel is the only place I've seen or used scroll lock. Thank you for another interesting video.
Love the intro.
I had an AT keyboard from a company that made keyboards specifically for transcriptionists. It wasn't a proper capslock and didn't register as one. It was a latching switch where you'd expect a regular key, and all it did was bridge lshift. I hated that thing.
@@SwervingLemon Sounds like a stupid idea. let me guess. Pressing the number keys resulted with the corresponding symbols. Thus making it a shift lock as per old typewriters and not caps lock.
I seem to recall using scroll lock to pause scrolling output from DOS commands, particularly on the original IBM PC especially when reading from floppies, where long directory listings would load down the screen and scroll slowly enough that you could see something interesting going by and pause it with scroll lock to see what it is.
That got less useful as PCs got faster though. And thus "dir /p" came about, to pause the listing with a "Press any key" when it was more than a screenfull long. As did "dir|more".
@@AaronOfMpls dir|more was something I used on the original PC too, but scroll lock was also useful. Both generally worked with anything that used the DOS or BIOS provided character output routines.
Are you sure that you are not thinking of the [Pause] key? (Or [Ctrl+NumLock] as it was known before a dedicated pause key came about.)
I'm old enough to remember how to use Scroll lock, and only now I realize that my no brand el cheapo china town keyboard does not have a LED to indicate the status of Scroll lock (or Num Lock).
Awesome truck btw!
The glovebox door looks amazing! I'd like to have a car pained like that on the outside. The two-tone texture is something I could stare at for too long. lol :D
I think some keyboards from OE manufacturers had hard toggled Caps Locks. They had lights that were located right on the CL button. The side effect was that the there was a possibility of the light not matching the CL function. I think they pretty much faded away, once OS's, like Win95 began taking over the functions of all the software assignable keys. By the time AT faded & ATX was the sole standard, all functions were soft.
The Apple Extended Keyboard II is one such example
The only keyboard I ever used that had a physical locked down position is the Apple Extended Keyboard II which keeps the caps lock key down until pressed again on top of having an LED indicator on the top right. I'm sure that the actual state can be changed programatically as well, especially when using a PC card/emulator.
Beautiful restoration of your truck.
WOW … What you have done to that GMC truck is marvelous!