Key Names
 

Why are the Ctrl, Alt and Alt Gr keys so named?

Ctrl is Control (a keyboard command made by using that key in conjunction with another key i.e. Ctrl-C = copy.

Alt means alternative, as an example on older DOS based programs such as the original MS Word you could use Alt and F to open the file menu.

Alt GR means Alternative Group and I think (although not totally sure) that this was used by people using a foreign language with a QWERTY keyboard like German for instance.

Control was originally used to form control characters, ASCII characters 1-31 (Ctrl-A to Ctrl-Z plus a few others: Ctrl-[ and -], Ctrl-/ and a couple of others I forget). These represent characters that do not, in themselves, represent a visible symbol - things like backspace, new line, escape etc. are all control characters. Only later did they become a (different) set of GUI shortcuts.

Any Unix user will know plenty of these - Ctrl-A moves to the start of a line, Ctrl-E moves to the end, Ctrl-D deletes the next character, Ctrl-H the previous one (hence all the un^H^Hfunny '^H' jokes you sometimes see... ;) ). Microsoft's cmd also supports some, but not all. Anyone who has used Telnet will know Ctrl-].

What's really annoying is when you're used to Unix and try using some of the commands you're used to in a GUI. Ctrl-W by convention deletes the last word you tried. In firefox it closes the current tab (without warning, as I discovered the first time I typed this... :{ )

Oh, FWIW, i've also heard Alt GR called "alternate graphics" (don't really know why) and a French person calling it "acute/grave" (although on my UK-English setup I can't work out how you use it for graves, Alt Gr-A gives the acute)

And indeed you still can with most Windows programs. If you see a menu or command item with an underlined letter in it (eg File or Favorites), you can usually access that menu by pressing Alt and then the underlined letter, eg Alt-F or Alt-A.

Very useful for those of us who find keyboard commands much much faster than mousing.