Command key

An "extended" Macintosh keyboard—the most common type—has two command keys, one on each side of the space bar; some compact keyboards have one only on the left.

Apple's adaptation of the symbol—encoded in Unicode at U+2318—was derived in part from its use in Nordic countries as an indicator of cultural locations and places of interest.

(Left) command-option-* triggers a non-catchable hardware reset thereby hard rebooting the computer.

[5] The purpose of the Command key is to allow the user to enter keyboard shortcuts in applications and in the system.

If an application needs more shortcuts than can be obtained with the twenty-six letters of the Latin alphabet, double modifiers such as Command+Option are used.

(Indeed, the very first Macintosh lacked a Control key; it was soon added to allow compatible terminal software.)

With only a few days left before deadline, the team's bitmap artist Susan Kare started researching for the Apple logo's successor.

She was browsing through a symbol dictionary when she came across the cloverleaf-like symbol, commonly used in Nordic countries as an indicator of cultural locations and places of interest[1][6] (it is the official road sign for tourist attraction in Denmark, Finland,[7] Iceland,[8] Norway,[9] and Sweden,[10] and the computer key has often been called Fornminne—ancient monument—by Swedish Mac users[11] and Seværdighedstegn—landmark signs—by Danish users).

[14] The symbol was included in the original Macintosh font Chicago, and could be inserted by typing a Ctrl+Q key combination.

[16][17][18] On USB keyboards, the ⌘ Command keys are mapped to standard keycodes reserved for GUI functions.