What does the scroll Lock Button do??

Question

What on Earth does the Button called SCroll Lock Do??. All I Notice is that a small light turns up. What is its usage?????

Answer 1

It was used for old UNIX terminals that needed a way to see text output that flew off the screen because there was too much to fit on there. If you are running Windows, an equivalent thing would be the scroll bar on a command prompt window. It lets you go back and see text that went by too fast.

It might have worked on DOS as well, but I don't remember. It is mostly unneeded now except for backwards compatability. It might be useful in a Linux terminal screen. I am running Linux now, but my laptop doesn't have a scroll lock key.

Answer 2

One thing it does:
If you were using a spreadsheet program, using the cursor control keys changes your selected cell around the page.

Turn on the Scroll Lock, and the cursor control keys pan the VIEW around without changing your selected cell.