what is the use of scroll lock key in computer keyboard?

Answer 1

The scroll lock key is intended to temporarily stop the scrolling of text or halt the operation of a program. Today, many programs commonly do not utilize or function properly with this key.

An example of a program that this key may still commonly be used in is Microsoft Excel. Users can press the scroll lock key to move the window without moving the selected cell or visa versa.

Once upon a time there were no scroll bars which u could see at the right side or bottom of ur window. At that time scroll lock are used very much. For eg. if u have 100 lines of output for a program, you could see only the last 25 lines. To see the lines above you have to go up again. To avoid this scroll lock are used.

But when scroll bars are brought, scroll lock lost their familiarity since we can easily see any no. of lines when there is a scroll bar.

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Vasu M
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Answer 2

Scroll lock is a key (with an associated status light) on most modern computer keyboards. The behavior of the key depends on the particular software in use.

The Scroll Lock key is a remnant from the original IBM PC keyboard. In the original design, Scroll Lock was intended to modify the behavior of the arrow keys. When the scroll lock mode was on, the arrow keys would scroll the contents of a text window instead of moving the cursor. In this usage, Scroll Lock is a modifier key like Alt and Shift (which modify the function of other keys) and, more specifically, a toggling lock key like Num Lock or Caps Lock, which have a state that persists after the key is released. Today, this particular use of Scroll Lock is rare. Only a few modern programs still honor this behavior, such as Microsoft Excel (in the behavior of arrows — when Scroll Lock is on, the selection does not move), Lotus Notes and Forté Agent. In modern GUI environments, scrolling is usually accomplished using newer means such as scrollbars or scroll wheels. Therefore Scroll Lock can be regarded as a defunct feature in almost all modern programs and operating systems

Answer 3

Scroll Lock Key

Answer 4

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Scroll Lock is a relic of the pre-Windows and pre-mouse days. Old IBM terminals had text displays and arrow keys to navigate the screen. The scroll lock would toggle between scrolling the cursor or scrolling the contents of the whole screen. As computers evolved from mainframe to PC, the keyboards remained the same so that operators would be familiar with the interface. Today's standard keyboard has only minor variations from the original IBM 3270 mainframe terminals.

Answer 5

Today, this particular use of Scroll Lock is rare. Only a few modern programs still honor this behavior, such as Microsoft Excel (in the behavior of arrows — when Scroll Lock is on, the selection does not move)

In Linux virtual consoles, the Scroll Lock key is used to pause screen output. This behaviour emulates the Hold Screen key or similar flow control mechanisms on computer terminals. Because of this emulation, the term scroll lock is sometimes used to generically refer to a screen pausing behaviour. This usage could potentially cause confusion since screen pausing behaviour is not intrinsically a part of the Scroll Lock key. In DOS, the Pause key pauses the screen output.

In the Opera web browser the Scroll Lock key plays an important role in voice recognition. KVM switches often use the Scroll Lock key with a number as a hot key to activate a softswitch for changing between channels. Similarly, the KVM-like software solution Synergy uses scroll lock to keep the keyboard and mouse control within the current screen. In the multilingual text editor iLeap, Scroll Lock key is used as a toggle switch to change between two languages.

Answer 6

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what is the use of scroll lock key in computer keyboard?

Answer 7

Basically, this Key is difficult to understand for Win users,,, earlier, it had good use, when there was no Window sys to get the stuff up/down by side slide...
Screen outputs used to be missed by readers, if they exceeded the screen row limit,,, it was a hardware solution, for easy use, to see screen outputs page by page (meaning - screen capacity page - not actual page..)
There were software work around too, w/o this key, like directory listing per page - for those familiar with DOS... etc..

Answer 8

Shaj has a good answer, but it was simply lifted off of wikipedia.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scroll_lock