I was looking at some old terminal and workstation pictures, which reminded me of the fact that what we're considering a "standard" keyboard layout hasn't been around for all that long. I'm not talking about QWERTY or DVORAK, but modifier keys (hyper, meta, alt, win etc.) or other auxiliary keys (backspace, delete, scroll lock, undo…).
Switching your Caps-Lock to Control is probably the most common change people do even nowadays. Some also change it to ESC (for vi users) or backspace - which, incidentally, at least one terminal had in place of the enter key.
If I remember correctly, way back when Erik Naggum said that he switched his numerical keys to the symbols (i.e. their shifted state) and used the function keys for the numbers (obviously on a keyboard where they're immediately above the numbers and not shifted sideways). He also moved his right-hand position one key to the right, and used the "new" column in the middle for braces, brackets etc.
So I was wondering what unusual tricks you've taught your keyboards, currently or in the past. I would guess hacker news to have a diverse enough crowd for some interesting tidbits.
