Marcin Wichary 9 March 2026 / 4,000 words / 55 images
I don’t know what is Apple’s endgame for the Fn/Globe key, and I’m not sure Apple knows either
Every modifier key starts simple and humble, with a specific task and a nice matching name.
This never lasts. The tasks become larger and more convoluted, and the labels grow obsolete. Shift no longer shifts a carriage, Control doesn’t send control codes, Alt isn’t for alternate nerdy terminal functions.
Fn is the newest popular modifier key, and it feels we’re speedrunning it through all the challenges without having learned any of the lessons.
1
The first Fn key that mattered arrived with perhaps the most cursed and ridiculed computer in history, IBM’s 1984 PCjr.
PCjr was envisioned as a home version of the massively popular office 1981 PC and its revered Model F keyboard:
IBM PC keyboard (1981) Courtesy Eric Keppel
Depending on how you look at it, PCjr’s keyboard was cut to hell for reasons of either cost or simplicity. Its key count – 21 fewer than the PC – was similar to the Macintosh’s keyboard that debuted just two months earlier. But the Mac was starting anew, and IBM had to deal with the baggage of the 3-year-old platform. The promise of software compatibility of the new home computer with its “senior” predecessor came with a design challenge: keys couldn’t simply be removed.
... continue reading