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Comment by ChrisNorstrom | Hacker News Reader

Nonsense!

The average person uses CAPS LOCK a lot more than those function keys at the top, or the scroll lock or pause/break key or the insert key.

I use it when typing addresses for shipping labels or sometimes the column names for excel spreadsheets or serial keys or case sensetive captchas. I know it's not much but it's still a lot more than the function keys, pause/break, insert, or scroll lock.

I've never in my life used F1-F3 and F5-F11. (alt+F4 closes windows and F12 is for full screen, those I use).

Perhaps Capslock and Backspace should be switched?

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Check out the position of caps lock on the Apple II keyboard, they had it right back then.

http://www.digibarn.com/collections/parts/swyft-card/apple-s...

Very true. (it was swapped with control)

>I use it when typing addresses for shipping labels

>the column names for excel spreadsheets or serial keys

Why would those need to be upper-case?

The USPS still recommends addresses be entered in upper case: "We recommend that you write addresses in all uppercase letters." [1]

This apparently used to be a bigger deal back when the USPS relied on OCR more heavily for bulk mail delivery, but barcodes have become the method of choice.[2]

[1] http://faq.usps.com/eCustomer/iq/usps/request.do?create=kb%3...

[2] http://smartystreets.com/kb/faq/should-addresses-be-in-upper...

Uppercase characters are usually more reliably unambiguous when writing by hand.

With printed words, lowercase words are more legible because of the words' distinct shapes.

It seems that uppercase is just carryover from hand printing. I work with technical drawings and labels are uppercase for no reason whatsoever, and it's fatiguing to read.

... oh ya, the USPS is relevant. When did snail mail drive the modernization of anything?

Oh really? So e-commerce (which uses snail mail) is irrelevant? So the millions of products that are sold online from all over the internet just... magically teleport to their destination huh?

They don't, they just show up much better and bigger on the label.

I use the F keys all the time using emacs. They are super useful.

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