Numlock & alt let codes for symbols

[Syntho]

I just realized that when I try to turn on the scroll lock and numlock keys on my Apple extended ii keyboard that the little green lights won’t light up. I was trying to turn on numlock so I could type some symbols using the alt/opt key and the numeric keypad on the right. Not working. What gives?

 

[cheesestraws]

The alt+number is a PC thing, really.  Generally all the accented letters and so forth are accessed by dead keys on the Mac (i.e. press a key for the accent, then press the base letter).  If you want to be able to enter arbitrary characters purely from a list, I'd suggest getting hold of PopChar, which gives you a nice menu to do it.

 

[Syntho]

I figured out Macs don’t really work like that just now. Funny, I only needed a weird symbol just now, first time in years.

I’m looking for a down arrow and up arrow. I found them, but for some reason Appleworks won’t type it. Simple text does though.

 

[Syntho]

I looked through the history of Apple keyboards and from what I can tell, the only reason they put those numlock, scroll lock etc keys on there is for compatibility with other operating systems. I wonder if Mac OS 8 and below are even programmed to utilize them, seeing as I can’t even get them to turn on.