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Most of the differences between European and US keyboards make sense for reasons of localisation. However, one thing I've always felt the US keyboards did better (and all EU keyboards I've used seem to have this flaw), is having the ~ symbol on beside the number 1. EU keyboards instead have the ` key in that spot. For me to type a tilde, I have to press shift+# which is beside the enter key, an awkard combination for a symbol I use rather frequently.
Uses of ~:
- Approx
- Home Directory on *x systems
Uses of `:
- Executing shell commands in PHP
- Escaping things on Stack Overflow and co.
Now as you can see, your likely to use your home directory on a command line more often that executing shell commands in PHP, and your about a billion times more likely to use approx than to escape something on SO/SF/SU.
Does anyone know the reason why these keys are switched?
Macha
Posted 2009-07-24T20:34:20.273
Reputation: 4 772
3maybe I am not reading the question properly, but on US keyboards, the key next to the 1 is also backtick. It's only tilde if you press shift. – TM. – 2009-07-24T20:39:44.567
Ah, I had been led to believe that it was tilde first on US keyboards, because on all gaming forums talking about accessing consoles, I see the instructions say Press the tilde key (` for european keyboards). – Macha – 2009-07-24T21:25:10.417
What I want to know is what this weird ¬ character is on UK keyboards that one gets by typing SHIFT+backtick, and how does one get the broken pipe, which is the third symbol on that key? – paradroid – 2012-04-22T15:58:31.207
2@paradroid It's one possible symbol for not in logic. ¬A + ¬B would be (!a || !b) – Macha – 2012-04-22T16:12:22.177
Shift-Accent is also tilde for Australian keyboard layouts – Brock Woolf – 2009-12-01T16:59:06.040
If there's a third symbol on a key, you use Alt Gr to get it. – OrangeDog – 2014-05-09T20:39:15.593
The # key is much closer to a Shift key than ` - doesn't that make ~ quicker to type on the UK layout than the US? – OrangeDog – 2014-05-09T20:40:41.817