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Are you using a numeric keypad?

We pay tribute to the classic keyboard standard. A departed relic of the old computing era? Or a thing necessary to increase productivity? Let's get it right.




Dealing with the junk in my home office - and lately Iā€™m definitely not the only one doing such things - I blew dust from a fairly large number of things I had forgotten. I had a bunch of electronic devices that I have not used for years - Amazon Echo Dot, Ouya, a prepaid phone with a bunch of disconnected applications from Google, etc.

Under this handful, the unexpected was revealed: an additional key block for my wireless keyboard, which I use in daily mode. My model, Microsoft Sculpt Ergonomic Keyboard, has a digital block as a separate wireless module, and I obviously removed it and forgot about it. I mentioned this case in our work chat for all kinds of jokes, with a sarcastic remark like ā€œwho uses it like that today?ā€

In response to me, an unexpected avalanche of opinions fell over the digital block, which I, in principle, should have foreseen. After all, I write for the magazine Ars Technica. If an object is in any way connected with any form of electric current, then we will find an opportunity to argue about it. And we argued - the editorial staff gave out jokes and memories related to the digital block over the past decades.

This is followed by a handful of opinions from our employees regarding the digital unit, ranging from ā€œindispensableā€ to ā€œunnecessaryā€.

Mavis did not teach me to print


I'll start with my opinion, not without some PTSD .

As a child, I grew up in a typical American suburb of the 1980s, so my earliest memories were from a school computer lab furnished with new computers from Apple. For the most part of my life, I believed that Apple itself provided these computers to schools in order to hook students with such a cunning advertising move not only to computers in general, but also to computers, programs and OS from Apple in particular. However, my superficial study of this issue revealed only one example of such a move on the part of Apple, which took place in the 1980s exclusively in California. Apple had difficulty trying to get federal lawmakers to introduce tax reductions on computer donations.


No, I did not print this at school. This is an IBM 031 alphanumeric copy rock drill, which is discussed below.


The digital block was located at an angle, and the numbers were located, like on a telephone keypad, and not like today on computer keyboards. However, its location next to the QWERTY-keyboard appeared for the first time.

The history of the digital block is rather blurry, at least in the matter of its transition to computers. We know that the appearance of the block was patented in the United States in 1914 by the inventor of Swedish origin, David Sandstrand, although for computers of his time, and not for typewriters. To clarify the issue, I contacted the Living Museum and Computer Laboratory in Seattle, because they have a lot of classic PCs. They told me about two IBM products. At3232 series of computers , launched in 1971, quite a lot of actions had to be performed from the keyboard, and their version of the keyboard with a digital block may have become the first among computers with an electronic display, both consumer and everyone else.

In addition, the IBM 031 alphanumeric copy rotary hammer, launched in the 1930s, was perhaps the first device that most closely resembled a modern keyboard with a numeric keypad, and it was used by an army of clerks who drove data. The photo above shows a digital block of a different location, but it is possible that for the first time it was invented specifically for use with a QWERTY keyboard.

So I canā€™t say how my elementary school in Texas acquired an Apple IIe fleet. However, I learned to print on them already in the third grade, and maybe earlier, in a program that I could not find later. And although by that time the Mavis Beacon Teaches Typing program [a popular program for teaching computer printing in the USA / approx. perev. ], our school used a rudimentary monochrome application that simply gave me commands to print repeating words and phrases, without illustrations that would demonstrate how to arrange my hands. I always thought that the name of this program was PRIMR, but now I can not find any traces of it.

I mention all this because I canā€™t remember whether there were digital blocks on computer keyboards at my school or not. However, I remember that this program taught me to type by touch, without taking my hands off the middle row of keys. Not sure how a text-based program could teach this. Therefore, as a teenager, I never reached for digital blocks, even when they tried to push me in this direction of video games. However, this, probably, would be easier to do than to make my Gravis Gamepad bust to work with a large number of programs.

I did not rely on the digital block until I graduated and got the first formal job: working with clients and technical support from a telephone broker who had filed for bankruptcy shortly before (at the beginning of 2003 it was not the best time for job search). It was a hemorrhoid job that included strict rules prohibiting us from redirecting frustrated customer calls to a manager if we, front-line infantrymen, could not help them with problems such as a broken service or obviously fraudulent contract terms. And for every angry call or report on a dropped service, it was necessary to fill out a support request by clicking on the digital block when filling in such details as user IDs and collocation points.

So, of course, I pushed to quickly click on the keys of the digital block in the reverse order, and when I have to process a large amount of data, I prefer this layout. However, when I was fired in the bankruptcy process, I took this as a sign from the higher powers that govern my fate of using keyboards, and decided that in the future I would try my best to avoid the digital unit. Thoughts about the digital block return me to that desolate cubicle desert, where the main food for conversation was a quarrel over food stolen from the refrigerator. In this regard, I prefer keyboards without a digital block, and I would like as many laptop manufacturers to offer keyboards with a digital block as an optional option.

Defenders of the digital block from our edition


Next are the reviews of my colleagues about the digital block.

Ron Amadeo, review editor : is this a serious question? Yes, an auxiliary keyboard is vital for me when using a computer, and when it is not on the laptop, I just get lost. It is ideal for quick use of the calculator, for entering sequences of numbers in the specification table. If in a sentence I write more than two numbers in a row, I move my hand to the right. In addition, I use it to enter a bunch of special characters using alt codes that I memorized. ALT + 0215 for "Ɨ" in "1920 Ɨ 1080", ALT + 0151 for a long dash (-), ALT + 0128 for the euro symbol "ā‚¬". And it was really difficult for me to enter these alt codes into the text, because I donā€™t think about them at all. I already have them in my muscular memory!

I have not tried laptops with a digital unit, because laptops are primarily designed for mobility. My laptop needs to fit on my lap in an airplane, train, in the limited space available to a blogger, and models with a digital block are simply too big. However, Iā€™m already used to the lame level of performance on a single-screen laptop.

Eric Benjman, Managing Editor: In the 80s, when I was in high school, I had very few opportunities to learn how to program and generally work with a computer. One option for me was a local vocational school. There, in addition to BASIC programming courses, there was also a course called ā€œdata processing and computational operationsā€, which was a strange mixture of learning the COBOL language and entering data into a computer (I recall, it was 1983). When entering data, the numeric keypad was actively used. There, for example, there were tests consisting only of entering infinite rows of 6-8-digit numbers, so I had to master in this matter to complete the training.

Since then, I have always gravitated towards keyboards with a digital block. The only exception was the 2nd generation Apple Wireless Keyboard. I bought this one because I didnā€™t like the dominance of wires on the table, but even then I bought an additional block of digital keys on Bluetooth from a third-party manufacturer. And when Apple nevertheless added a wireless version of the keyboard with a digital block, I bought myself one and have been using it ever since.

Although I normally print blindly, it still seems to me that to enter a bunch of numerical data itā€™s easier to switch to a digital block. When I work on a laptop, sometimes I even postpone such tasks until later, until I get to the desktop computer.


A quick way to enter special characters through the digital block, which Kate Cox prefers

Kate Cox, Technical Policy Reporter : Oui, il faut l'utiliser quand Ć©crire dans une langue utilisant des signes diacritiques [Yes, I use it when I write texts with diacritics ]

Thank you, Windows, for not changing these commands at least 25 years old.

Jim Salter, technology reporter : if the keyboard does not have a numeric keypad, I do not need it. Honestly, I use this unit only once every one or two weeks. However, without it, the computer does not seem to me "real."

Nate Anderson, Associate Editor: on a small laptop Iā€™m still ready to put up with the lack of a digital unit, but when I get to 15 ", I start to demand it. Yes, of course, itā€™s a little annoying when the keyboard is shifted in relation to the screen - but not so much when I need to drive in digital data, but thereā€™s no digital block.

For most people, digital blocks are not needed - but I still have two keyboards with them. This is because on my old wired Mac keyboard, in addition to the digital block, there are still full-size cursor keys, keys page up / down and home / end. As an author and editor, I need to navigate through the texts, so I absolutely need such keys, so I always buy keyboards with a number pad - just not because of the number pad itself.

Lee Hutchinson, Chief technology editor: a keyboard without a numeric keypad - like pants with a cutout on the ass. I honestly bought a beautiful special Varmilo keyboard without a digital block with white backlit keys and tried to work with it, but all the time, many times a day, I tried to hit my fingers on the table in the place where this block was supposed to be. It turns out that I enter all the numbers from the digital unit, and I do it for so long that it would be too painful to fix this muscular memory.

I already have a lot to do without learning to enter numbers from a long row of keys, like a little undergrowth.

In addition, according to which of the employees uses the digital unit, you can always say which of them played adventure games from Sierra in the 80s. These your truncated keyboards will be useless if you suddenly want to download DOSBox and play old adventure games with text parsing. How will you move your character? Checkmate, assholes!

Opponents of the digital block



John Broadkin reluctantly uses this Model M keyboard.

John Broadkin, chief IT reporter : I would prefer that my desktop computer does not have a numeric keypad on the keyboard, because then I would not have to reach my touchpad so far with my right hand. However, my favorite Unicomp Model M mechanical keyboard for Mac is only like that, so I learned how to live with it.

I still mostly use horizontal numeric keys, as I learned them all, and for me they are an integral part of the QWERTY layout. And to use the digital unit, I have to look at the keys every time.

Timothy Lee, Senior Technical Policy Reporter: I do not use a digital block at all. I grew up on computers without it (Apple II +, and then Macintosh Plus), so I never learned how to use it. For all my life I have had several keyboards with a numeric keypad, but I donā€™t remember that I used them to enter data to a large extent. Most of the time I spend on a 13 "MacBook Air. It doesnā€™t have a digital unit, and I donā€™t miss it.

Chris Lee, author : I used to enter data into a computer for hours and would kill anyone who tried to take it from me my digital unit. And today I donā€™t care. Itā€™s quite convenient, sometimes it is necessary for me. Well, it just collects dust.

Of course, I write a lot, and it would be possible to decide that I enter characters from Unicode. Especially mathematical. And finding characters like ā‚¬, Ɨ, and ĀÆ \ _ (惄) _ / ĀÆ should be time consuming, right? Indeed, to speed up the input of all these uncomfortable characters, you supposedly have to remember the codes. Nah, don't have to. To write mathematical identities, you need to know the LaTeX commands (when using the equation editor for Word). Well, in general, it was for uncomfortable characters that they came up with keyboard shortcuts. ā€œMmultā€ ā‡’ Ɨ, ā€œsshrugā€ ā‡’ ĀÆ \ _ (惄) _ / ĀÆ.

So no, thanks, Iā€™ll choose a keyboard depending on which laptop it comes with.

Aaron Zimmerman, text editor : there are too many moody old-timers in this thread. Keyboards only without a numeric keypad.


Jeff Dunn Keyboard, Topre Realforce. She has a digital block, but he does not use it.

Jeff Dunn, commercial editor : I will give a schizophrenic answer, admitting that I have both a full-sized keyboard and a keyboard at 60% (and I used quite a few keyboards with a numeric keypad). It seems to me that 100% of the keyboards look more attractive in terms of design. I imagine exactly this kind when I think of the word ā€œkeyboardā€. However, in practice, I use the number row of keys more often than the digital block, possibly due to the long-term use of laptops as the main computer.

In general, thanks to keyboards without a digital unit, I stretch my arms somewhere less, and my shoulders strain less, so ergonomics also win. And although I donā€™t have a gaming computer, I think that a large free space for an armpit is useful in most modern PC games. Therefore, I am not a big fan of the digital block. The type of buttons, the feel of the keys and the aesthetics are much more important to me.

Dan Goodin, security editor : Iā€™ve been using Appleā€™s compact wireless keyboard for more than ten years and have already forgotten about the existence of a digital unit. I learned to type blindly in 7th grade, so I never needed a separate digital unit. And since I never used it, I never learned how to do it, and did not include it in my work.


65% Magicforce keyboard with GMK Metropolis and B'Gnu-Thun Alien Orik Lawson keys

Orik Lawson, creative director : I used to use a full-size keyboard with a numeric keypad and I like utilitarian things. It is good not only for entering data - for many things, such as, for example, exiting text input mode in Photoshop, a large enter key can be useful. However, such a wide keyboard has its own price - because of the remote location of the mouse, you have to move your shoulder in a not entirely ergonomic way.

Recently, I hit mechanical keyboards (I havenā€™t completely plunged into this rabbit hole, but still ahead), and decided to try switching to a 65% keyboard. It looks like a 60% keyboard, narrow, but it has an extra 5% with cursor keys and buttons for navigating pages. I cannot refuse individual cursor keys, I use them too often in graphic applications. I am still waiting for the production of the aluminum case and the printed circuit board that I ordered for my keyboard, made from scratch. Then Iā€™ll completely immerse myself in the rabbit hole, and until then Iā€™ve been using the Magicforce 65 as a test option .

So far Iā€™m missing a digital unit, but I really like the opportunity to move the mouse closer. Since I have nothing to do with mountains of numbers, I miss the digital unit more out of habit. Such a replacement was worth it, and I need to better monitor ergonomics, so for now I will focus on this option. But I was thinking about putting a separate digital block to the left of the keyboard. You can find advantages in keeping your right hand on the mouse while working with graphics, and enter numbers with your left. I think Iā€™ll wait until I finish the next keyboard and Iā€™m convinced that it suits me.

Peter Opascar, line editor: I use only laptops because I canā€™t sit still. All the time I want to move from place to place - either on the kitchen worktop, then on an island in the middle of the kitchen, then on the table, now on the bed, then in Starbucks. During isolation, I had to remodel the garage into a workplace that we call Garagebucks. So the smaller the laptop, the better. And for video games, I donā€™t need a digital unit, I donā€™t play them. And I donā€™t play games because I hate fun.

And I say this absolutely honestly, and I want to say that I just like laptops, because they allow me to move quickly when I feel that something interesting is happening around the corner.

Samuel Axon, Editor-in-Chief of Reviews: for 15 years I have never used a digital unit. Since about 2005, I mainly worked on laptops, on the keyboards of which they simply do not exist. And when I recently bought new keyboards for a desktop gaming PC and home workstation, I specifically chose keyboards without a digital block, because it eats up the space on the table, and I love minimalism. I like the thought-out space where everything is carefully selected and serves its purpose. From my point of view, the digital block is useless. As well as function keys - I would not even notice if the keyboards with them ceased to be produced at all. And Iā€™m still a developer - I believe that for most ordinary users, with the exception of accountants, they are even less useful.

However, in certain product reviews, I can note the absence of a numeric keypad on the keyboard, because I know that some readers disagree with me. I think itā€™s important for me to always remember that I do not always represent the audience for whom I write reviews.

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