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Ask HN: Why is ⌥ the option key symbol?

3 points by wcdolphin ↗ HN
As far as I can tell, the last time Apple manufactured a keyboard with this symbol on it was 2007 with the A1243. Does anyone know why this is the symbol, and why Mac OSX consistently shows a symbol which appears nowhere on any of their (recent) keyboards?

9 comments

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tptacek
It's a switch. I always thought it was one of the more elegant pictograms Apple used.
goshakkk
My MacBook Air (2012) and Apple Wireless Keyboard do, in fact, have this symbol right below the "alt" label so I wouldn't say they "appear nowhere on any of Apple's recent keyboards."
dfc
Somehow you ended up at AskHN instead of Ask Jeeves. Did you bother to search for this before asking HN?

When I searched google the first link is:

http://www.quora.com/Computer-Keyboards/What-is-the-origin-o...

You can probably find some more links here:

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=what+is+the+origin+of+apple%27s+option+...

gruseom
Somehow you ended up at AskHN instead of Ask Jeeves. Did you bother to search for this before asking HN?

Please don't treat other people this way on HN. It's mean, and it corrodes the site for all of us.

dfc
I have no problem admitting it was not the most polite response. Do you think HN would be corroded by people flooding HN with AskHNs anytime they are curious about something but can not be bothered to do the most cursory of searches on their own? I do.

I typed the AskHN title verbatim into google and was presented with a number of pages that explained the origin of the symbol.

tptacek
No, I don't think it would be corroded that way. I (briefly) enjoyed answering his question. Whereas your response (briefly) made my blood pressure shoot up.

People frequently ask questions on HN that Google could "answer". When those questions spark interesting conversations, they get voted up. Otherwise, they fall off the front page.

A better thing to do than acknowledging that you were rude and then explaining why you decided to do that would simply be to apologize.

zachlatta
I know I found this question interesting and it makes a good start for conversation. I found your response rude, impolite, and pretentious.
mchannon
Looks like the Apple Lisa had this symbol on its standard keyboard (sans the word option), meaning it's been in use since at least the early 80's.

I would wager that this was the first use of the symbol to denote this purpose.

Interestingly enough, the symbol hasn't been widely explicitly mentioned in menus in Apple's OS until relatively recently (OS X). Option was always that special easter egg of a key that half of Mac users still never used or realized existed.