ISO/IEC 9995 - ISO/IEC 9995-2

ISO/IEC 9995-2

ISO/IEC 9995-2 specifies requirements for the keys contained in the alphanumeric section (see the description of ISO/IEC 9995-1 above).

The alphanumeric zone (being a part of the alphanumeric section) has to contain 47 or more keys used to input characters, including the Space bar which has to be placed in the lowest row (row A according to the reference grid specified in ISO/IEC 9995-1). Also, there must be:

• at least 12 keys in row E (the upmost row) in positions E00 to E15, containing all keys to input the decimal digits,
• at least 12 keys in row D in positions D01 to D15,
• at least 11 keys in row C in positions C01 to C15,
• at least 10 keys in row B in positions B00 to B11.

The space bar has to expand at least over the positions A03 to A07. This implies that Japanese keyboards containing muhenkan, henkan, and the Katakana/Hiragana switch keys (the first one left, the other two right of the space bar) are not compliant to the standard if taken literally. This, however, is considered neglectable as the space bar has less importance in Japanese writing than in Latin or similar ones, as Japanese words usually are not separated by spaces.

Layouts which are designed for the Latin script must contain at least the 26 basic letters A…Z and a…z, the decimal digits 0…9, and the following characters contained in ISO 646: ! " % & ' * ( ) +, - . / : ; < = > ? _ and space.

The keys shown grey in the figure, all being function keys, constitute the left and right function zones, while all other keys constitute the alphanumeric zone. The reference grid position of any function key may vary according to the specifications listed below. Especially, on a keyboard with considerably more than 47 keys in the alphanumeric zone, the right function keys will get higher column numbers.

The symbols shown for the function keys are specified in ISO/IEC 9995-7. Letterings which are commonly used instead of the symbols are shown in their English version in parentheses.