To truly understand the Caps Lock key, one needs to know the history of computer hardware, programming languages, and the typewriter. The notion of Caps Lock started with typewriters, which allowed their users to shift between lower case and upper case letters with a "shift" key. (Most typewriters had two shift keys, one on either side of the main keyboard. Depressing the key moved the key assembly up and changed the impact area of each key from the lower case letter to the corresponding upper case letter. The "Shift Lock" key engaged a mechanism that kept the key assembly in the upper position, allowing the typist to easily type a series of upper case letters.
The early data terminals duplicated this capability, but with "logical" shift keys that changed the keystrokes from lower case to upper case. Very early data entry devices, such as IBM keypunch machines from the 1950s, her only upper case and therefore needed no shift or shift lock keys. Very early IBM systems such as the IBM 1401 used a character set that had only upper case letters. Later systems (although still early in the computer age) allowed for upper and lower case.
For computers, the distinction between upper and lower case was important. Early (pre-1970, for the most part) systems worked only in upper case. Data terminals that allowed lower case input were a nuisance, since the lower case letters were ignored or rejected by the programs. Programming languages such as COBOL and FORTRAN (and even BASIC) expected the programs to be entered in upper case. For these systems, the Caps Lock key was a boon, since it let one type large quantities of text in upper case.
The mavericks that changed the world were Unix and the C programming language. The pair allowed (and even encouraged) the use of lower case letters. Soon, compilers for Pascal and FORTRAN were allowing upper and lower case letters, and doing the right thing with them.
By the time the IBM PC came along, the computer world was ready to accept upper and lower case. Yet there was enough inertia to keep the Caps Lock key, and the IBM PC kept it. Not only did it keep it, but it added the Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys.
Yet the Caps Lock key has outlived its usefulness. I don't use it; I haven't used it since I wrote COBOL programs back in the late 1980s. The varied tasks of my work expect upper and lower case letters, and long strings of upper case are not used. Tools such as Microsoft Word, Microsoft Excel, and Microsoft Visual Studio for C++ or C# do not need blocks of upper case letters. The modern languages of C++, Java, and C# are case-sensitive, and using them requires upper and lower case.
I say, let go of Caps Lock. We can do what we need with the rest of the keyboard. (Actually, I think we can let go of the Num Lock and Scroll Lock keys, too.)
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