Hello folks.  I realize this question might seem a bit off topic at
first, but I thought someone here might know the answer.
	My wife just acquired a new HP Pavilion Pentium based
computer running Windows ME.  She's considering making it a dual-boot
machine, switching between Windows and Unix.  While I think most things
will work fine, I notice that the keyboard for this machine has a number of
extra keys, as well as a volume knob.  These keys have labels like:
play, forward, stop, Internet, shopping, travel, standby, mute, etc.
They are arranged above the function keys, and around on the left end of
the keyboard.  They are small rubberized buttons, much like one finds on
hand-held calculators.
	My question is, what do these keys look like to the operating
system?  Are they simply macro keys which generate pre-programmed key
sequences?  Are they additional key scan codes, beyond the original 101 or
103 key definitions?

How does the "volume" knob look?

Any enlightenment would be most helpful.
-thanks
-Brian