From: Philippe Verdy (verdy_p@wanadoo.fr)
Date: Thu Dec 18 2003 - 13:00:45 EST
Doug Ewell wrote:
> On U.S. keyboards, there is no letter key to the left of the Z. (I've
> looked for a keyboard with such a key, but to no avail.) Both Shift
> keys are the same size, about 2½ times as wide as a letter key.
On international English keyboards with 102 keys, the extra key is
there (like in other 102-keys layouts for non-English keyboards)
and takes space on the Shift key (on the left side of the fourth
row).
Arcane Jill did not speak about the 101-keys US English keyboard
layout, but there DOES exist US English keyboards with this extra
key, which allows them to be used ALSO with non US keyboard layouts
that need that key (for example the standard French keyboard needs
it to allow input of "<" and ">", in addition to the other "OEM"
key located near Enter on the third row or near Backspace on the
first row, to input "*" and optionally "µ" on PC keyboards)...
I do think that US keyboards should have this extra key somewhere
(if the designer does not want to reduce the Shift key, it could
be located on the right of the reduced Backspace key, or by
stealing some width in the space bar (this was done for notebook
compact keyboards to place arrow keys and Ins/Del).
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