If you look at the 1 and 6 keys on the Eee PC 1000H, you’ll notice circles around the numbers with inversed colors:
It appears as though the keys are also like this on Eee PC 904 and Eee PC S101 devices.
Many people on the forum are curious as to why these keys are like this, but nobody seems to have a concrete answer.
What do you think?
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NoneOfYourBusiness said, “The argument for the keys being different to help typing doesn’t make sense to me as I have never found them to help on that score, and the fact that other netbooks don’t do the same, combined with ASUS not making a song and dance about how it’ll help you type more easily on the smaller keyboard suggests that it wasn’t designed with that in mind.”
I tried it on a 1000 with Windows and can’t find anything special those keys do with Fn, Alt, etc., and I assume I’m not the first to try.
Many of the theories given above can be discarded out of hand, as they ignore the Up and Down keys, nearly universally focusing in on the 6 key’s central location.
It’s time to take the latest rumors into account and state the obviously reason: they are function keys for the upcoming Eee running Android OS.
Excellent post
Maybe if Asus got off their a#%es and wrote a manual geared for adults instead of kindergartners all this speculation wouldn’t be needed. Numerous calculators and computers past and present have or have had keyboards wherein the keys play multiple roles for various functions. This is, however, the first such electronic device I’ve seen to be so utterly devoid of technical documentation on the functions available.
Perhaps they are used in the manufacturing process to guide poorly educated workers in running the machines through functional test sequences…
maybe those are the keys ya put super glue on to catch whoever’s been messing with yer ‘puter.
the Google Taiwan’s President has revealed that Android will be the Google OS for netbooks and Asus has confirmed that they’re developing an Android based Eee to be release this year:
.
http://offtopicnews.blogspot.com/2009/03/adesso-e-ufficiale-android-e-il-google.html
The 1 and 6 are more visible in low light conditions.
When you know where 1 and 6 are, it is easier to figure out where the other numbers are.
Turn out the lights and try it.
hold doown ctrl then press the inverted 1 and 6 at the same time and it opens up your home page
i tried it
at least in firefox
This is what my contact at Asus told me.
Hi David,
There’s not really a specific reason function wise. However,
it’s just easier for people to type when they spot the two dots. It’s
just something similar to like there’s usually a bump on the numbers on
your cell phone or on “F and J” on the keyboard.
Hopefully this helps!?
Cassie
It’s a reference to Area 61, which is even more secret and high-tech than Area 51. Asus is an extremist cult branched off of Islam in the 1600s that built up a computer manufacturer as a cover story. They’re trying to warn us of the upcoming apocalypse controlled by the Stay-Puft marshmallow man hidden in Area 61.
On 1/13, George said:
“My 1000 manual came with a note written in the margin, “The 1 and 6 keys are specially marked to initiate a truly marvelous experience, unfortunately this margin is not large enough to contain the details.”
Hahahaha…anyone else get it?
What happened to this site? No more updated news on the Eee PC? This news posting was back in December of 2008, and there hasn’t been any more news postings since. Is this site dead, or have people gotten tired of netbooks in general once it has become mainstream and everyone own one (or 2 or 3) these days.
Ok here’s an original angle, the highlighted 6 key helps me since on a French keyboard, the ? is found by hitting shift+6
^__^ Thanks ASUS, I kept forgetting that!
Hi, just wanted to say that I use the eepc 1000H to post on my blogs when I am not home,
and it is a great thing to have!
I highly recommend it.
Playing around, I discovered that [Ctrl + Alt] and any of the arrow keys lets you rotate the screen 90 degrees in that direction. Cool! Neat for reading EBooks too. Using XP on a Eee 1000 with SSD.
I thought it was simply to mark them during manufacturing? I believe these keys are placed on manually on a product line? Not sure, but if they are it could explain those specific markings….
The 1 key looks like an L upside down as well as the ! looking like an i in reverse. The 6 key looks like a 9 key upside down as well as an V arrow key. The two arrow keys can easily be confused with right and left arrow keys. The home key may be distinguished with the right click key? Makes sense to me since every key with a black circle can be mixed up with another key.
Being a bit of a keyboardist, I can tell you.
Orienting yourself on the keyboard in a low light with only sporadic number entry can be challenging. Throw in a smaller than normal keyboard and it is worse. The addition of the highlighted 1 and 6 keys makes accurate numeric entry much easier.
iv got the h1000 and the only thing iv found with the additional numbered keys (m,j,k,l,u,i,o,7,8,9,0) is that if you have the Num Lock key activated then you can use thoes numbered keys, as a form of a calculator if you like.
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