The Joel on Software Discussion Group

I've just bought a British 12" PowerBook which is fantastic. However, coming from a PC background, I'm a bit confused by some of the unfamiliar keys on the keyboard!

To the right of the right-hand command key, there's a key with a symbol on it that looks like a ^ with a bar across the top. What is that key and what's it for? Also, the command keys have an Apple logo on them, which to me indicates that they might be used to activate the Apple menu, only they don't. What's the significance of having the Apple logo on them?

I must admit I have no idea what that key is used for.
The apple key ist simply another control key and not tied to the apple menu. It's used a lot like the alt key in windows (try appple+tab, apple+Q).

Also, try Control+Alt+apple+8. Very nice effect. You can pretend it's a secret government notebook from the sixties.

Thanks. When Max users refer to the Control key, do they mean the Ctrl key or the keys with the funny propeller (and Apple logo) on them?

We mean the "apple key".
When we talk about "option" it's the key to the outside of command.
The icon on the key is supposed to represent a switch depressed, as in the activation of an optional feature.
Simillarly the apple key probably also has the command symbol (a square with a circle attached at each corner is the best text description).
You'll see these symbols in the menus to graphically depict menu shortcuts. At first it's a bit weird, but when you're used to it it's an excellent graphical shorthand.

Long time mac user but didn't know about the "Control+Alt+apple+8", how useful ;) ! So searched for it and dropped on that, which may be interesting for the OP (other MacOS X keyboard shortcuts involving the apple key) :
http://www.hackerskitchen.com/~gandalf/mac/keyboard.html

And: don't forget the F9, F10, F11 keys to use Exposé! It's the desktop realestate managment tool (I mean: visual realestate on your display, not some integrated realestate software).

As it was mentionned that the Apple key is working a bit like ALT: for copy/past/cut though, it's APPLE+C, V or X. So in that case it acts like CTRL on Windows...

Etc, etc...

Thanks all, that's a lot clearer now. Exposé was one of the first things that I tried out, along with doing the genie animation in slow motion by holding down Shift whilst minimising and fast user switching to get the cool cube animation! I love it.

The significance of the apple logo on the command keys is mostly historical. The old Apple II computers used to have "open apple" and "closed apple" keys - one of them was filled in, the other wasn't. For some reason one of them stuck around. But nobody refers to the apple anymore; it's always called "command", or represented with the little clover-leaf symbol.

The ^ with the bar above it is probably the control key; usually it's just shown as a ^.

It's always puzzled me that most Macs never have the symbols for the modifier keys printed on the keyboard.

Another fun one is command/option/8.
Then hit command/option/= a few times.
Hit command/option/8 again to turn it off.

"The ^ with the bar above it is probably the control key; usually it's just shown as a ^."

If that's the case then it's inconsistent because the left control key has "ctrl" printed on it! I noticed that in pictures of the US version there's another Enter key in that position.

When I started using the Mac I plugged my PC keyboard and two button scroll mouse into the Mac.  It worked just fine and made getting familiar with it very easy.  The best keyboards I found for bothe pc and Mac are ironically from Microsoft.

The great thing about having a Command key for standard menu shortcuts separate from the Control key is that there's no conflict between key shortcuts when using a Terminal window. For example, you can use Cmd-C and Cmd-V for copy and paste within a Terminal window, whereas Ctrl-C and Ctrl-V would send those characters to the shell. It always bugs me when I'm using Windows and I try to paste something to a DOS prompt. I instinctively type Ctrl-V, which results in putting a ^V character at the prompt, so I have to right-click and choose Paste from the menu instead.

Dunno what the key is actually for (the mac isn't plugged in and I rarely use it) BUT on a UK full size ADB keyboard the key with that caret with a bar symbol on it is in the same spot as the numeric keypad enter key is on a normal PC keyboard.

On the open and closed apple symbols, they are originally from the //e which wired them up to the game paddle inputs to act as shift keys. IIRC open-apple-? was supposed to be help.

One of the problems with the Apple ][ family keyboard design is that you never got key up/keydown events just an ASCII code representing the key pressed (along with a flag to say a key had been pressed).

On the original apple ][ keyboards there wasn't a lower case option so often the shift key was wired to one of the paddle inputs, on the later //e models (which did have a proper upper/lower case) keyboard this modification could be jumpered in on the board.

^ with a bar is the Enter key. As in the Enter that's normally on a numeric keypad. Took me a while to figure that one out. Not a lot of use to be honest - I would remap it to do something useful if I could be bothered figuring out how.

As said before, ^ with a bar is Enter key. Officially, Return is inverse-L shaped key in the main part of the keyboard. Enter is I-shaped key on the keypad. Most of the time, they act the same, but some apps use them for different stuff - like Return is OK button, Enter is new line in some multiline edit box.

As for the Command key - there's a story behind it:
http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?project=Macintosh&story=Swedish_Campground.txt&sortOrder=Sort%20by%20Date&detail=medium

The Apple logo on the command key is historical, as others have pointed out.  I'm not entirely sure why they still have it there.  The whole point of creating the command symbol was so they didn't need to use the Apple logo there.  (The Apple IIgs, for example, used the Apple logo instead of the command symbol in menus, so it made good sense to have both logos on its keyboard, but that was a few years ago.)

The ^/_ key next to your command key must be a British thing.  American Apple keyboards don't have that.  (As you can see on the Apple webpage, that key is normally labelled "enter".)  I'd consult the manual, or your local Apple dealer, and ask them why your keyboard looks funny.  :-)

It is the Enter key.

On the laptops, that enter key is conveniently located near the trackpad...