Do you have 10 keys, brother? Our tribute to the classic standard keyboard

Going through a complete, clean sweep of my home office, something I know I’m not doing lately, I had to dust off some forgotten items. At my house, this included a range of electronic products that I hadn’t used in years: an Amazon Echo Dot, an Ouya, a burner phone packed with discontinued Google apps, and so on.

Underneath all of that was a surprise: an additional 10-key keyboard for my wireless daily controller keyboard. This model, a Microsoft Sculpt wireless ergonomic keyboard, divides its 10-key part into a separate wireless piece, which it had apparently saved and forgotten. I mentioned it on Ars’ “personal” chat channel for fun, with some sarcastic version of “who even uses these things the most?”

What followed was an explosion in views of the 10-key numeric keypad that he hadn’t anticipated but should have expected. This is Ars Technica, after all. If something accepts any form of electric current, we can find a way to make it a topic of conversation to “stop everything, let’s get this over with.” And we did it, with staff remembering decades of anecdotes and memories of 10 keys.

What follows is a series of 10 key Ars sentiments ranging from “indispensable” to “disposable”.

Mavis did not teach me typing

I’ll start with my own take, which includes some personal PTSD (the “T” stands for “10 keys,” of course).

As a son of the 1980s in the American suburbs, my earliest keyboard memories come from public school computer labs flush with new Apple computers. I spent much of my adult life assuming Apple had supplied them directly in a clever promotional move for students to get hooked not only on computers in general, but also on Apple machines, software, and operating systems. But my cursory research only points to a clear move by Apple to schools in the 1980s focused directly on California, as Apple fought to get federal lawmakers to move the needle for nationwide tax credits for computer donations.

So I can’t say how my Texas elementary school got its fleet of Apple IIe machines. But in these, I was trained to write from third grade, perhaps earlier, in a software suite that I have never discovered in later years. While the first version of Mavis Beacon teaches how to write Debuting at this point, our school used a rudimentary monochrome app that simply instructed me to write words and phrases over and over again, without any instructive hand placement image to help. (I’ve always thought his name was “PRIMR”, pronounced “prim-her”, but I can’t find any trace of this software anywhere. Readers, if you know what I’m talking about, please direct me to whatever it is. Entry from archive.org that I’ve missed.)

I bring all this because if my elementary school had 10 keys on their keyboards or not, I don’t remember; Instead, I can remember that this typing software trained me to type on the keyboard without taking my hands off the start row. Anyway, I’m not sure how the software could have nimbly explained how to do this in a text-only interface. So I never hit key 10 during my teens, even when video games tried to move me in that direction. (That would probably have been faster than trying to force my Gamepad Gravis to work with more software.)

I didn’t get to trust a 10-key keyboard until I graduated from college and got my first formal job: handling customer service calls and technical support for a phone line dealer who had alone declared bankrupt. (In early 2003 it was not a great time for the job search market.) It was an anal wart from a job, complete with strict mandates that we Never passing angry phone calls to a manager in case the first-line growls were unable to help with issues like inactive service or apparently fraudulent contract terms. (I arrive bad.) Each angry call or dropped service report came with a required rubric of completing a support ticket, checking the 10-key box to fill in details such as customer identification numbers and placement points.

So of course I got quick as a click through the reverse order number arrangement in a key of 10, and it is my preferred number arrangement if I get into a pinch of data entry. But when I was fired for the bankruptcy process, I took it as a clear mandate from any power that guides my destiny to use the keyboard that I omit the 10 keys whenever humanly possible. Thinking of a 10-key keyboard takes me back to that gloomy wasteland of cubicles, the type where stolen food was discussed in the fridge. weekly forage conversation. Therefore, I prefer keyboards with no required 10-key pads, and I want more laptop manufacturers to serve their 10-key portions as optional, removable devices.

The 10 key defenders of Ars

What follows hereafter are the responses from my colleagues at Ars Technica about the 10-key number buttons.

Ron Amadeo, review editor: Is this a serious question? The keyboard is a vital part of my computing experience, and I’m totally lost when I don’t have it on my laptop. It is perfect for quick use of the calculator application and entering number strings in a specification table. Really, if I write more than two numbers in a sentence, I move my hand. Also, I need it for the ton of special character alt codes I’ve memorized as ALT + 0215 for “×” in “1920 × 1080″, ALT + 0151 for a dash of em (-), and ALT + 0128 for Euro ” € “. Writing the ALT code numbers for this article was really difficult because writing these is not something I normally think about. Everything is muscle memory now!

I have not yet tested a keyboard laptop because laptops are for portability. My laptop must fit in my lap on a plane, a train and a small live blog space, and the 10-key models are too big. Anyway, I’m pretty much committed to miserable levels of productivity on a laptop, with just one screen.

Eric Bangeman, managing editor: As a high school student in the early 1980s, opportunities to learn coding and other aspects of computing were limited. One option for me was at the area vocational school. In addition to some BASIC programming classes, there was a course called Data Processing and Computer Operations that was a strange mix of COBOL learning and direct data entry (remember, this was 1983). The data entry portion had a heavy 10-key component, which included typing tests consisting of nothing more than rows and rows of 6-8 digit numbers, and I had to be proficient to pass the class.

Since then, I have always gravitated towards keyboards with a numeric keypad. The only exception to this was when the second generation Apple Wireless Keyboard came out. I bought one because I hate cable clutter on my desk, but even then I bought a third-party Bluetooth keyboard to use. Once Apple came back and added a 10-key option to its wireless line, I bought one and have been using it happily ever since.

While I can type fine, it’s still easier for me to switch to the numeric keypad for things that involve typing a bunch of numbers, to the point that if I’m on my laptop, I’ll put some tasks off until I get back to my desk.

Kate Cox, Technology Policy Reporter: Oui, il faut l’utiliser quand écrire dans une langue utilisant des signes diacritiques.

Thank you, Windows, for not changing those commands in at least 25 years.

Jim Salter, technology reporter: If you don’t have 10 keys, I don’t want it. If we’re being completely honest here, you probably only use 10 keys once every week or two. But it just doesn’t feel like a “real” computer without one.

Nate Anderson, Deputy Editor: I can tolerate the lack of 10 keys on a smaller laptop, but by the time you reach 15 inches, I’m back to the picky one. Admittedly, it’s a bit annoying when the keyboard is shifted towards the screen … but it’s not as annoying as when I need to type some numeric data and the keyboard is missing.

For most people, the 10-key number buttons are useless, but I still have two keyboards that have them. This is because my older, wired and extended Mac keyboards with 10-key pads also come with full-size arrow keys, page forward / backward keys, and start / end keys. As a writer and editor who needs to get around text-based documents, these are all lifesavers. So I always buy 10-key keyboards … just not for 10-key keyboards.

Lee Hutchinson, Senior Technology Editor: I have to go with the Ron socket: a keyboard without 10 keys is like pants without an ass. I bought a beautiful custom 10-key Varmilo keyboard (or “TKL” for “tenkeyless”) with lighted white covers and gave it a sincere shot, but kept tapping my fingers on the part of the desk where the 10-key was, many times at day, for days. Apparently I type all my numbers on the 10 key, and I’ve been doing it for so long that unpacking all that muscle memory would be painful.

I have better things to do with my time than learning to write numbers in a long, straight row like a pleb.

Plus, you can find out which staff grew up playing Sierra adventure games in the 80s by who wants and doesn’t like 10-key keyboards. Your TKL keyboards are worthless if you ever feel the urge to turn DOSBox on and play analyzer-based adventure games. How are you going to move your little character? CHATEMATE, fools!