Be honest. Do you ever use the CAPS LOCK key on your keyboard? Don't you find it more of a nuisance than needed? Wouldn't that space have a better use, say a new function key that would switch from porn personal websites to the corporate one? Or from fun Firefox to annoying Excel when your boss walked in?

Reading through the One Laptop Per Child design discussions, I'm happy to see that they too wonder, is the CAPS LOCK key needed? To quote the OLPC Wiki's Keyboard Design page:

Omit the CAPS LOCK key and status LED from the keyboard! This could save valuable real-estate inside the OLPC and on its face. When was the last time you pressed the CAPS LOCK key on purpose?? Typing in all caps is usually either a mistake or rudeness. My new Microsoft keyboard even has a (software) option to disable the CAPS LOCK key. I'm surprised the Apple hasn't already removed the Mac's CAPS LOCK key.

So what was the One Laptop Per Child designer's response to the useless CAPS LOCK key on computer keyboards? A muted maybe:

CAPS LOCK is used to switch between "normal" letters like Thai, Khmer, Kannada,.. and Latin letters

Um, yeah, and you could always program other keys to do that. For once, I can agree with Nicholas Negroponte, as he's quote by BBracy in her synopsis of his ISTE NECC speech:

What is the purpose of the Caps Lock key? The inventor should be put in jail.

Enough debate lets take a look at the latest OLPC CM1 computer design. If you zoom in on just the keyboard, you'll see that the green design is ambiguous. We don't know what's up. The older orange design though, that still has the CAPS LOCK key.

As to the final design of the Children's Machine 1, we'll have to see what Quanta Computer builds in Changshu.