Can't find the 'Any Key'

Where - oh - where is the any key?

Back in the 80's when I first started working with, then on computers the key board had 86 keys (unless it was a terminal keyboard then it had up to 94 or 96 keys depending on who the manufacture was, VAX, IBM, Solaris). Then in the early 90's a new keyboard came out that had a built in 10 keypad, the numerical pad on the right hand side of the keyboard. Previously the 10 key pad was a separate peripheral that cost extra (a lot extra) also you had to have a program that had the function of the 10 key pad built in to it. They also added some more keys, F10 to F12, Print Screen, Pause, and so forth this is called the 101 key keyboard.

Also at the same time a new key came out, the 'any key'. Now as I said I started working on computers a long time ago and I have never found the 'any key'. But when you install a new program you always see the term - 'press any key to continue'. I think there is a disconnect between the programmers and the engineers. There is no any key on the keyboard! Although I have seen some labels you could put over a key cap that had the 'any key' written on them it never actually worked. After all if you covered up the 'a' key or the 'y' key when you pressed them you printed the a or y on the screen. Try it, open up your word processor and press one of the keys, the letter is printed. You could press one of the F keys (the function keys at the top of the keyboard) but if there is a function programmed for that key then you get the result, such as the F1 key is normally help, and the F10 is the tab, and so forth.

Now days the keyboard has incorporated in to it short cut keys for email, volume control, internet search, chat, and some other keys that can be programmed to start up the associated program. But after searching through the documentation for the Microsoft Wireless keyboard for my wife I can not find the short cut instructions to program one of those keys as the 'any key'. This really does bother me because I feel like either I am ignorant or I have missed something in my training and learning experience.

So if you know what happened to the 'any key' please let me know cause this has been bugging me for over twenty years.

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