Ask HN: History of the F2 "edit cell" hotkey in Excel?

1 points by debo_ 9 hours ago

Hi HN,

I recently had a younger colleague bemoan the awkwardness of using the F2 keyboard shortcut for something as frequent as editing a cell. It's such powerful muscle memory for me after 30+ years -- even on laptop keyboards -- that I don't really notice it.

I also grew up playing videogames where the F-keys were frequently used as hotkeys, whereas now I think they might feel vestigial to many people.

I poked around a bit for some apocryphal stories about when this hotkey was introduced and how it has been conserved for so long, but didn't find much.

I guess I'm just wondering -- does anyone here have any juicy F2-related trivia? :)