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.

 

[Ikagura Ikagura]

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

I've bound END sometimes, assuming it doesn't do anything.

Especially for OBS.

I also use Page Down for screenshots in Steam because some games could actually use F12 for an in-game option.


I kinda wish keyboards could replace some antiquated keys for modern functions like an overlay (like the Home button on gamepads) or recording with Shift + PrntScrn.

PAUSE being used to literally pause a game fits a lot (like in Doom or Half-Life).

 

[Potapota]

I've bound END sometimes, assuming it doesn't do anything.

It's main use is for jumping to the END of the line when editing text as far as I'm aware. It's pretty handy even. Home for going to the start of the line.

 

[Darren]

Print Screen is the equivalent of Screenshot. In the '00's you'd just hit Print Screen, open a blank Word document, hit Ctrl + V, and it'd paste your entire screen.