The Magic SysRq key

[teejmya]

I'm surprised no one has commented about this yet, I use this trick all the time as a NOC tech. Holding the sysrq key and typing:

R E I S U B

is much better than holding the power button.

Just remember: Raising elephants is so utterly boring

[coolgeek]

> Just remember: Raising elephants is so utterly boring

FTA: the word "BUSIER" read backwards

[Mosteran]

Does the Sysrq key do anything else besides this? It doesn't make sense for everybody to have it on their keyboards just to serve low-level developers. The same goes for scroll lock and to some extent pause. A lot of keyboards combine these together and make them hard to find but they're still there for every computer user on the planet to look at and read while they're trying to find a key they actually want.

[superpatosainz]

Well, at least in my Spanish keyboard there are two functions for the SysRq key, as the keycap says:

Impr. Pant. | Pet. Sis. -- which is expanded to --> Imprimir Pantalla | Petición a Sistema -- which translates to --> Prnt Scr | SysRq

So that binding makes the key actually useful for everyday activities.

[hugodahl]

Scroll Lock is handy for at least people who are power users of Excel. If you "turn on" scroll lock,you can move the active sheet around without changing the current/active cell.

For Pause, it's useful in Visual Studio to interrupt the current build.

[abrowne]

> It doesn't make sense for everybody to have it on their keyboards just to serve low-level developers.

It did in 1984: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_request

[kristopolous]

it's not on many modern at least, smaller form factor, laptop keyboards. Chromebooks, lenovo x230/240, hp stream 11, carbon x1...

[housel]

Knowing these is a must if you're doing embedded development. I have a printout of the table on this page posted on the wall of our validation lab.