Arrow keys
Before the computer mouse was widespread, arrow keys were the primary way of moving a cursor on screen.
The original Macintosh had no arrow keys at the insistence of Steve Jobs, who felt that people should use the mouse instead.
[3] They were deliberately excluded from the Macintosh launch design as a forcing device, acclimating users to the new mouse input device and inducing software developers to conform to mouse-driven design rather than easily porting previous terminal-based software to the new platform.
This cursor key layout was seen in Sinclair ZX80, ZX81, and ZX Spectrum home computer designs.
These machines had 40-key alphanumeric keyboards with one or two shift keys for producing symbols or invoking secondary functions.
The corresponding character codes returned by ROM routines varied between machines, with Spectrum and Ace designs having the order of up and down keys on the keyboard reflecting which had the lesser and greater numeric value.
Although the QL-style keyboard on later Spectrum + and + 128K models introduced various dedicated keys including arrow keys either side of the space bar (left/right in a pair to its immediate left, and up/down to the immediate right) and removed related labels, either method produced the same signals and there was no difference between which of the alternatives was used as far as software was concerned.
The style was popularized in competitive play in Quake and subsequently QuakeWorld, notably by professional player Dennis Fong, where the advantages of WASD and mouselook were recognized over a purely keyboard-based control system.
[6] In the same year that Castle Wolfenstein was released, 1981, the game Wizardry used the AWD keys for movement in a first-person dungeon.
Both the programmers of Castle Wolfenstein and Wizardry were users of the earlier PLATO system where the game Moria used the AWD keys.
The ESDF variation is an alternative to WASD and is sometimes preferred because it provides access to movement independent keys for the little finger (Q, A, Z) which generally allows for more advanced manual binding.
Moreover, these keys are compatible with both QWERTY and AZERTY keyboard layouts, which is a major plus if the game is also released in France or Belgium.
[9] Dan "vise" Larsen from Quake Team Deathmatch clan "clan Kapitol" popularized ESDF as an alternative to "WASD", explaining that the player gains three additional keys to bind the Quake game's controls to.
This is very comfortable for right-handed players and seen as the primary advantage over using WASD, but it is ill-suited for left-handed mousing.
IJKL, like WASD, are arranged in an ergonomic inverted T shape, and, since they are used by the right hand, adjustment is easy for people who commonly use the arrow keys.
In addition, on the Apple II, special support existed in ROM for Escape mode.
Another fairly common variant on these machines was the combination of RETURN and / (slash) with the left and right arrows, as those four keys roughly form a diamond on the keyboard; while the right ⇧ Shift key would be in the more natural position for "down", pressing ⇧ Shift alone was not detectable by software on an unmodified Apple II or Apple II plus.
HJKL is a layout used in the Unix computer world, a practice spawned by its use in the vi text editor.
They have the advantage of letting touch-typists move the cursor without taking their fingers off of the home row.
Examples of games that use HJKL are the text-based "graphic" adventures like NetHack, the Rogue series, and Linley's Dungeon Crawl.
This layout allows the player to aim with the mouse while strafing (sidestepping), turning and running or backpedaling all at once creating slightly more complex movements.
The second, and probably more prominent reason is, in assigning both the turn and strafe commands, performing movements and dodges can be much more confusing, so newcomers tend to not prefer this key setup.
Though no longer widely used, many FPS veterans and tournament players still employ this key setup.
Commonly used in 2D-based fighting games, ASD-SPACE maps A, S, and D to "left", "down", and "right" movement, while the spacebar is used for "up" (jumping).
This allows an easier access to "360 degree" motions than a normal inverted-T layout, as well as being more ergonomic than simply placing all directions in a single row (ex.
SAZD is a slight variation on WQSE and WQSD, in that it is both ergonomic and rotated, but gives the fingers closer proximity to the ⇧ Shift and SPACE keys.
[citation needed] A few games from the 1980s, such as the Phantasie series, use the "3WES" layout, which forms a diamond on QWERTY keyboards.
In this layout, three of the four keys happen to correspond to the compass directions "West", "East" and "South".
The YGHJ configuration also places the hand closer to the center of the QWERTY section of the keyboard, potentially opening up the entire board to custom keybindings.
Professional Counter Strike:Global Offensive player Fashr is known to use somewhat unorthodox keybindings.
