22

The original USA release of the Macintosh came with the M0110 keyboard. Somewhat famous for not including arrow keys because Steve Jobs wanted to encourage developers to use the mouse instead, it also fit the compact size of the original Mac by only being slightly wider than the Mac itself and thus did not include a numeric keypad. A year or so later, the Mac Plus would come with the M0110A keyboard which added the arrow keys and a numeric keypad.

While the original M0110 was minimal, it did introduce the special Option and Command keys, but curiously there was also an 'Enter' key in the lower right in place of where a "right Command" key would have been expected.

original mac128 with US keyboard

My question is, what purpose did this 'Enter' key serve? The keycode is different than the 'Return' key an inch away, but given its placement and lack of a decent layout of the keys above it for even emulation of a numeric keypad, it doesn't really make sense what it was for. As well, when the Mac Plus M0110A came out, the numeric keypad's 'Enter' key had a different code despite the original one in question no longer being present.

I can speculate that on non-USA models this key was replaced with a variety of other functions, so perhaps it was something they could put there knowing other localizations would need a key?

Improve this question
1
  • The separate Enter key first appeared on the Apple Lisa, survived as a separate key until the early 2000s on Apple's laptops keyboards, and is obviously still present on keyboards with numeric keypads. Use Fn+Return on a modern MacBook. Most modern software will treat Enter and Return as the same key, but the Enter does have distinct functionality on some apps like Excel and Numbers.
    – Darren
    Commented Aug 6 at 18:04

3 Answers 3

Reset to default
22

Well, it's what the name says:

In dialogs with multi-line text edits, the "Return" key will go to the next line.

The "Enter" key would submit and close the dialog.

Improve this answer
7
  • 5
    Yup, see page 89 (87 logical) of the 1984 Macintosh manual.
    – Stephen Kitt
    Commented Aug 6 at 16:27
  • 2
    That’s also in-line with IBM 3270 terminals where Return and Enter keys functioned in the same manner.
    – Sedat Kapanoglu
    Commented Aug 6 at 22:00
  • Interesting that they decided to combine those keys. Adding a new line is a pretty common thing to do while writing, but submitting is something you only do once at the end (and pray you can edit afterwards if you submit too early).
    – Parrotmaster
    Commented Aug 7 at 8:31
  • IIRC, in the MacScheme programming environment (circa 1986), we used the Enter key to execute the code we had typed.
    – Nimloth
    Commented Aug 7 at 11:26
  • 5
    I wish this change would have become more widespread. All too often in web UIs (including in this comment box) Enter will submit what you are typing, and you have to figure out if you have to use Ctrl+Enter or Shift+Enter for a newline.
    – rob74
    Commented Aug 7 at 12:53
15

TL;DR: To execute a dialog

  • Return works on Mac computers for text editing the same way as with most other systems: ending/starting a new line/paragraph in text areas. It produces the character code $0D (13), aka ASCII CR.

  • Enter in contrast is an additional key intended to 'execute' a dialog box - the keyboard equivalent for clicking on OK. It uses character code $03, ASCII ETX - End of TeXt a code reserved to mark the end of a transmission (block).

Or as described on Page 91 of the 1984 Manual:

enter image description here

It's an important distinction when with dialog boxes containing multi line fields. With only Return the user would have been forced to always use the mouse to leave that field. a real show stopper for fast handling.

In Comparison

Apple had the freedom to add a special key for this where other systems were forced to live with existing keyboards and no Enter key. Which led to a less than desirable situation in such systems of using CTRL- or Shift-Enter for the same purpose - a way less elegant solution.

The distinction is still visible in today's Mac systems which by now use PC like keyboards. Return still works as a line terminator, while FN-Return executed a dialog. Seems way more handy, doesn't it?

History

It's often mentioned that the Mac inherited it from the Apple Lisa, but the idea of separating line handling from form handling is of course way older and might date back all the way to the first interactive terminals in the late 1950s. It was present with most mainframe systems, most notable /360 compatible systems.

Improve this answer
14
  • 1
    IBM added the separate Enter key to their PC keyboards with the PS/2 (and 3270 PC) -- but that was too late, since Windows etc had to support XT and AT keyboards without a separate Enter key. I think my favourite 'OK' / 'Cancel' shortcuts were on Amstrad's PCW16, which used a PS/2 keyboard but was able to design the OS from scratch. F9-F12 were coloured blue, yellow, green and red, with F11 (green) mapping to OK, and F12 (red) mapping to Cancel.
    – john_e
    Commented Aug 7 at 8:56
  • 3
    How does Fn+Return "seem way more handy" than Shift+Return? Fn is usually on the left of the keyboard, necessitating the use of both hands; while Shift is conveniently placed directly below Return.
    – Sod Almighty
    Commented Aug 7 at 10:58
  • At least on the Mac, Enter doesn't produce ETX.
    – tofro
    Commented Aug 7 at 13:43
  • @tofro: I think Enter used to produce ETX (character code 3) on the Macintosh; maybe it produced linefeed. I recall "text mode" streams on the Macintosh would swap the codes for CR and LF, which preserved the distinction between the characters even though their meanings were reversed (Macintosh convention matched the "CR-only" line ending convention of the Apple I and Apple II).
    – supercat
    Commented Aug 7 at 17:21
  • 2
    It's nice to see that beautiful old Apple font.
    – Schwern
    Commented Aug 8 at 20:27
1

Perhaps it was for potential IBM block mode terminal emulators. IBM 3270 etc terminals had the Enter key in the same relative position. See: KB pix.

Also note that IBM transaction processing systems used Return key as a local editing key and it was the Enter key that performed like Submit does on web forms.

Improve this answer
5
  • I apparently misremembered that as the XMIT key. Maybe from Burroughs keyboards.
    – RonJohn
    Commented Aug 7 at 1:27
  • 5
    Anyway, I seriously doubt Jobs was thinking about potential future 3270 emulators
    – RonJohn
    Commented Aug 7 at 1:28
  • 1
    @RonJohn I second that thought. IBM was the enemy for Apple back then. This changed greatly around 1990, when e. g. SNA•ps emerged from a collaboration between Apple and IBM.
    – PoC
    Commented Aug 7 at 10:32
  • @PoC IBM PCs were a competitor but midrange AS400 and high-end mainframes were not, even to this day. Businesses ran them and people needed to connect. Microsoft ran AS400s for internal use till the mid-90s.
    – user71659
    Commented Aug 9 at 0:36
  • @user71695 I doubt that Steve saw it this way. IBM was declared the enemy, not a certain product (line).
    – PoC
    Commented Aug 10 at 10:35

You must log in to answer this question.

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged .