This tutorial deals with the IBM-style keyboard. If your keyboard has function keys across the top then you have what is called the enhanced keyboard. It was introduced with 80386 systems in a bid by IBM to have all their keyboards be roughly the same.

If your keyboard has a column of function keys on the left side it mimics the original keyboard introduced with the first IBM systems. There is no single best keyboard design; just the one you like best.

There is a third design that IBM introduced with their 80286 (AT) systems but it never caught on in the marketplace.

The keyboard consists of four sections, broadly described below:

• Function keys. The group of 12 keys on the top of the keyboard or 10 along the side.
• Alphanumeric keys. The largest section that works much like a typewriter.
• Cursor control keys. The center group of keys that move the cursor (only available on the enhanced keyboard).
• Numeric keypad. The keys on the right that switch function between number entry and cursor control.

Each of these sections contains keys with special meaning to the PC.

These special keys will be covered in this tutorial. The standard typewriter keys will not. We assume that you know how to type (or at least "hunt and peck").

Before we can start with a detailed description of the keyboard, you need to understand the concept of a buffer, something the keyboard and other parts of the computer uses.

Buffers