3 the Keyboard

The keyboard, as I’m sure you’re aware, is the computer’s equivalent of the typewriter. It just has a few extra functions, which we’ll cover in due course. The keys you’ll need to be most familiar with, besides the letterpad, and the numbers at the top, are the ‘Enter’ key, the ESC key, and the CTRL, ALT and DEL (or DELETE) keys.

The ‘Enter’ key performs two main functions. When navigating around the computer, the ‘Enter’ key can be used the same way as a left-click on the mouse; ie. it is like the ‘go’ button; it tells the computer which option you want to choose at any particular point in time.

The other function of the ‘Enter’ key is used when wordprocessing a document; here the ‘Enter’ key is used to move your cursor to the next line for typing.

The ‘ESC’ key stands for ‘Escape’, and that’s exactly what it does. If you do something on your computer that you realise you don’t want to do, pressing ‘ESC’ should generally exit you out of where you are straightaway. Be careful though – it will probably exit the whole software package you’re in, and if you’re working on something and haven’t saved it, you may end up losing it all.

The ‘ESC’ key also comes in handy when your computer ‘freezes’; ie. stops working for whatever reason. Pressing ESC should generally fix the problem, and take you back to the desktop / main page. But if that doesn’t work, you’ll need to use the CTRL-ALT-DELETE function, explained below.

If you need to stop your computer working, for whatever reason, and you can’t shut it down the way you normally would, using the CTRL–ALT–DELETE function commands the computer to shut down. To use this function, find the three keys first. The CTRL and ALT keys should be to the left of the spacebar, and the DELETE key (maybe your keyboard just has DEL, it’s the same thing) should be somewhere at the top, on the right hand side. To activate the function, you will need to press the CTRL and ALT keys together, and while you are holding these down (generally with your left hand) you can use your right hand to press the DELETE key. A box should appear called “Windows Task Manager”, which will give you several options, one of which is ‘shut down’. Or, the box which appears may just ask ‘Do you wish to shut down your computer?’, in which case you would left-click once on the ‘Yes’ button.

And if neither of these work, the 'final solution' is to press down the 'Start' button, as in, the one that you press to turn the computer on in the first place, and hold it for about a count of 10. This overrides the machine, and it will turn itself off.