The Finnish Keyboard Layout in AmigaOS

The Finnish/Swedish keyboard layout of AmigaOS allows entering all ISO-8859-1 characters without having to remember any cryptic numeric codes.

• Most of the accented characters can be produced by using the diacritical compose keys. For example, to produce î, first press Shift+^ and then i. (This is identical approach to most international PC/Windows keyboard layouts.)
• Most of the other special characters can be found on very logical locations, such as Alt+S for ß, Alt+R for ® or Alt+Shift+O for Ø.

The second approach is also present in the international PC/Windows keyboard layouts in the form of Alt Gr key combinations. However, this practice is rather underdeveloped and underused when compared to the Amiga's extensive use of the Alt key.

Also note that the international PC keyboard layout only has one Alt Gr key (on the right side of the space bar), whereas on the Amiga both Alt keys produce special characters, which allows for more natural typing. To complicate things even more, the U.S. PC keyboard layout has no Alt Gr key at all!

As a result, a typical Amiga user tends to use the full potential of the ISO 8859-1 character set more naturally - almost without thinking - whereas his fellow PC/Windows user usually avoids using special characters at all costs.

The Finnish Keyboard Map Illustrated

Note: The blue characters below indicate diacritical compose keys (i.e. "dead" keys that do not produce a character by themselves, but when pressed in sequence with other keys). I am not sure what the bold/italic markings are supposed to indicate.