What's the purpose of the Scroll Lock, Pause, Insert and many other keyboard keys we barely use everyday?

[Ikagura Ikagura]

The right part of the keyboard has the numpad yet in between we get the arrow keys as well as a set of 9 specific ones for very specific uses:

I was always wondering what some of those were made for.

 

[MasterEn]

home and end jump you to the top or bottom of a page in a program or web page.
delete works like right clicking and scrolling down the little menu to delete an item.
i think print screen will send a picture to a printer. it also works with the windows button to take a screen shot.
page up and down work like the mouse wheel, but not as accurate. the current page just move a small chunk in either direction.
i think scroll lock locks the mouse wheel.
insert and pause break... i don't know. i would guess that insert is for putting graphics or images into a block of text, and pause break might make a new page in a word like program.

 

[Potapota]

They're extra fun keys for you to bind stuff to.

 

[Waffles's iconWaffles]

Much like the ancient "run" button in old Commodore computers, they are leftovers from a time without a GUI guiding the way.

I have used the hell out of Print Screen, though, when editing a gaming segment for the school's newspaper project way back when (easy, instant screenshots on DOS). I have also learned that they work excellently as replacement C-buttons on N64 emulation due to their layout and location.

 

[LiberoVulpesLiberoVulpes's icon]

Leftovers from terminals era, many keyboards still have them for the old farts.

Home and end = Beginning and end of line.
PgUp and PgDown = Self explanatory.
Insert = Switch to insert mode in some text editors.
Scroll Lock = Make all other way of scrolling not work, in some text editors.
Pause/Break = Stop processes, like BIOS or Printing.

 

[jankusanagi jankusanagi]

Leftovers??

Most of those keys are insanely useful nowadays, way faster than click-click-click-reach-towards-mouse-for-everything.