Cherry MX Locking Unit

[Sailer]

Did someone ever get a hold of one of these Locking Units?

http://www.cherrycorp.com/english/switc ... mx_cat.pdf
(Down on the right of the first page)

Don't really see the purpose of a unpressable key...

[Ascaii]

7bit is selling them in his switch group buy

[HzFaq]

They come with the Cherry Raptor, the only use I can think of for them is blocking the left Windows key so you don't hit it when plaing a game (as this would bring up the Windows menu and move focus away from the game window). Outside of that though, no idea what they'd be used for.

[Ascaii]

http://deskthority.net/workshop-f7/mod- ... t4503.html

[HzFaq]

That's for the latching switches, the diagram in the PDF is those little U shaped jobbies you slide around keys to stop them being pressed.

[Ascaii]

Ahh, now I get it.

[Sailer]

Yes I see:



It seems these are a bit rare and unnesessary when newer keyboards can turn of keys trough controller software.

Thanks for the quick reply.

[IvanIvanovich]

Yes, they were from the days before there were things like fn+key for winlock. But there was always registry setting then too so... I could see some other use in industrial setting maybe to prevent some 'dangerous' command from being sent accidentally.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Got to be careful — adding Fn often comes at the cost of a key you use. For example, the Quiet Pro lacks both RWin and Menu, one of those going to Fn. I use both of those keys!!

(My laptop has a bug BTW, where pressing Fn+F11 sends both Num Lock AND F11 ... WTF????)