We use the keyboard for everything every day because it is ultimately a way to communicate with the computer. Something you may have never noticed is that to the left of the spacebar we have a the Alt key and to the right of the space bar we have a Alt Gr key. They may look similar, but did you know that they have different functions?
Keyboards usually have different keys, and in many cases their use is unknown to most users. Some keys can be very useful and others are less interesting today. Focus on the two Alt keys on our keyboard and their particularities
Functions and Features
Although these keys share part of their name, their functions and features are different. The one that appears to the left of the space is the Alt key, which means “alternate key.” On the other hand, the one that appears to the right of the space bar is the Alt Gr key, which means “alternate graphics key”.
Generally, the Alt key is mainly used to access menus and other keyboard shortcuts. It is combined with one or more other keys to perform different functions which can be very useful. Some examples are Alt + F4 which is used to close windows or Alt + Tab which is used to switch between windows. There are many other combinations which usually depend on the operating system used or the application we use.
You should know that the Alt Gr key has quite different functions. This is a modifier key typically used to add special or rare characters found in the keyboard layout. An example could be pressing the Alt Gr + E combination which is used to enter the Euro symbol ($)
What is quite interesting is that this label is established by IBM as an alternative abbreviation for graphics. This label was already present on keyboards before the standardized layout for Windows. Initially, it may have been intended to add ASCII “drawings”, also called pseudographics, to text interfaces.
The function for entering “drawings” or special ASCII characters did not last long, as it was adapted. It was decided to use to introduce alternative graphemes.
The abbreviation has been retained primarily for convenience. Also, since both words start with “gr”, there is no need to make any further adjustment. The function of adding graphics only lasted a very short time, so it is not very well known.
Usage depends on language
Using alternative graphemes is extremely useful. In fact, in some languages, if all keys had to be implemented physically, keyboards would become huge. The solution of adding an alternate key to combine two characters or elements into a single key is perfect.
For us Spanish speakers, this means adding the necessary characters to the writing. From 1 to 6 we have different additional characters that we might need. Additionally, we have the brackets and braces combined with accents and other elements, next to the Enter key on our keyboard. Otherwise, this would amount to adding no less than ten new keys that are rarely used and would increase the dimensions of the keyboard.
Even if for us the increase would be limited, for languages like Belgian, Bengali or Finnish it would not be viable. These languages have many additional special characters and would cause a considerable increase in the size of keyboards.