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Anyone who's ever used a computer keyboard is familiar with the control key,

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but Mac users will know that in addition to control, you get a button that says Command,

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with this weird-looking symbol that kind of looks like a drone, or maybe a four-leaf clover.

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So why does Apple have this extra key, and what is that little thingy anyway?

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So Apple computers have long had control keys on them, which themselves date back to the age of

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teletype machines, which allowed users to interact with big old mainframes, and just as it is now,

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the idea was that holding the key down while pressing another one would activate some kind of

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special function you couldn't get just by pressing a single key. Specifically, they'd make it possible

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for the users to control the computer through the keyboard, hence the name, instead of just typing

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in printable characters. But that wasn't quite enough for the perfectionists at Apple, as these

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control key functions were mostly only useful when you were using one of those super old school

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terminals that only displayed a limited number of text characters, no graphics, and didn't

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feature mouse support. So Apple wanted to give their users a way to issue more useful commands

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quickly, so they put a couple of special keys on their keyboards starting in the early 1980s.

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Many Apple machines of this era had an open Apple and a closed Apple key, also called a solid Apple

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key, which would allow for more shortcuts. For example, open Apple plus A would select

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everything in a window, as opposed to control A, which would move the cursor to the beginning of

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the line. The general idea was to allow users to more quickly access menu items without having to

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actually open a menu, an idea that became even more important when the original Macintosh and

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its famous GUI were introduced in 1984. So by the time the Mac was being developed, Steve Jobs was

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tired of seeing the Apple logo all over the company's products. It's not minimalistic at all.

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In addition to the two Apple keys on the keyboard, the Apple logo was also on the

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OS menus themselves, as you can see in this screenshot from the Apple Lisa, the Mac's predecessor.

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Jobs believed this cheapened the company's logo and took it in vain. I'm thinking very highly of

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himself, clearly. So Apple introduced this loopy square looking symbol to use instead of the open

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Apple and the modern command key was born. To this day, the looped square command key is still the

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main modifier key on Macs, functioning similarly to the control key on Windows machines.

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Macs retain the control key not only for enabling even more keyboard shortcuts,

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but also to preserve some of those original terminal functions, which are often used by

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folks who program on Macs. So as we mentioned earlier, control A on a PC and control A on a Mac

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do totally different things. It's not even remotely similar. I'm gonna send your pictures

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to everyone. As for the closed Apple key, that functions more like the alt key on a PC. It wasn't

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used as much as command, but it stuck around and ultimately evolved into the key that's labeled

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option on modern Macs. But how exactly did the command key get that funny symbol? Turns out it

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happened basically by chance. After Jobs decided he wanted a new symbol, an artist that worked for

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Apple happened upon the looped square in a reference book. The symbol was, and still is,

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used in the Nordic countries on road signs to indicate tourist attractions and cultural places

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of interest. The rest of the Mac dev team found the symbol appealing. And it's been on Apple

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keyboards ever since. Maybe in the future, Apple will release its own meal delivery app with an

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icon that looks like a big Swedish meatball. I think we'd all like that. Delicious. Wow,

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thanks for watching the whole video. That's so great of you. Hey, since you watched it to the

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end, I bet you liked it, so you better hit the like button. Also, dislike, even though that's

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