I seem to have a vague notion of the Num Lock having some significance in the days of MS- DOS, but is there any reason these days for ever turning it off?

The only time I'm even aware of it now is if it gets turned off accidentally and strange things happen while trying to enter numbers into Excel.

MS-DOS had a NUMLOCK command which you could include in the startup boot files to set the NumLock key on or off. In the early days of computering computers/keyboards were more used for data/number entry...then the number pad was used quite frequently by those folks/companies rich enough to own a computer. But as time and technology marches on people use a keyboard mostly for typing in text. Notice I haven't used a number yet in this post. But if I was a bank clerk or data-entry puncher I would no doubt be entering some numbers. Time to end this post...not one number used...the number pad portion of my keyboard looks so lonely.

MS-DOS had a NUMLOCK command which you could include in the startup boot files to set the NumLock key on or off. In the early days of computering computers/keyboards were more used for data/number entry...then the number pad was used quite frequently by those folks/companies rich enough to own a computer. But as time and technology marches on people use a keyboard mostly for typing in text. Notice I haven't used a number yet in this post. But if I was a bank clerk or data-entry puncher I would no doubt be entering some numbers. Time to end this post...not one number used...the number pad portion of my keyboard looks so lonely.

Thanks for the input. I do use the number pad a lot, but still wonder if switching off the Num Lock would serve any useful purpose these days or whether, like the human appendix, it serves no useful purpose and could be removed without effect.

You don't loose anything on a full size keyboard as all keys without NUMLOCK are available elsewhere.

Usually in the block left to the numpad.

Remove the keycap and at this occasion also the one on the also quite useless SHIFTLOCK key (which I do ).

I know what you mean. I find it annoying when I accidentally turn off the num lock and the number pad stops working. I'm just guessing but maybe it has to with keyboards that don't have separate number pads like on some laptops. But then again if it is full sized keyboard why would they include it? looking at my keyboard there is another wasted key that is labeled "scr lk". I think its scroll lock but when I tried it the screen still scrolls.