# The key symbols that didn't survive

> Before keyboards settled on Shift, Enter and Tab, IBM was drawing tiny pictures for print screen, key beep and delete word.
- Title: The key symbols that didn't survive · Unsung | Shortify
- Summary: Before keyboards settled on Shift, Enter and Tab, IBM was drawing tiny pictures for print screen, key beep and delete word. Keyboard iconography lost to…
- Keywords: keyboards, iconography, design history, ibm, localization, technology, startups, key, symbols, didn't, survive, Unsung
- Source: Unsung — https://unsung.aresluna.org/key-symbols-we-lost-to-time-pt-1-the-pc-side
- Author: Marcin Wichary
- Read time: 1 min
- Topics: keyboards, iconography, design history, ibm, localization, technology, startups
## Keyboards used to be strange
Commodore, Atari, Amiga and an earlier Apple all stamped their logos onto keys, alongside a pile of keys that made sense only on that one machine.
## Words versus pictures
A twentieth century fight ran through traffic signs first. America wrote the instruction out, Europe drew it.

> For a lot of 20th century, a battle has been waging between words and icons.
## One product, every country
Icons were cheaper for Europe. Draw the function instead of naming it and you ship one keyboard across a dozen languages rather than a dozen SKUs.
## Express and Index
IBM's 1970s Selectric had a European edition with two keys we never got. Express was a very fast Backspace, Index moved the page down. Both were arrow keys before arrow keys.
## Only four made it
IBM's lab machines leaned hard into symbols through the 70s and 80s. Office buyers found them confusing, so the PC keyboard kept just Shift, Enter, Tab and a Backspace arrow.

> eventually lost to text as office PC users rejected the confusing symbols
## A screen becoming paper
Print Screen was drawn as a CRT turning into a sheet. There was also a key beep symbol, from the years when people moving off loud typewriters missed the noise.
## Proofreader marks, still in Unicode
The old Insert and Delete symbols borrow from proofreading marks. Several of them survive as characters nobody types: ⎀, ⎃, ⎁ and ⎂.

> These seem inspired by proofreader marks, which feels wonderfully old-time'y
## Key takeaway

Keyboard iconography lost to plain words in the office, but a handful of those drawn symbols are still sitting in Unicode waiting for a use.