The Escape Key: What is it for? September 3rd, 2007
The humble "escape" key is one of those keys that we do not really think about much. While we may smile at the picture of an "escape key" it has been a vital key to get out of those sticky situations where we need to stop a process from running.
wikipedia has an article on the "Esc Key" identifying that this key is most used in Microsoft Software, such as in Windows XP and Windows Vista. Depressing the "Esc Key" usually cancels or aborts the current operation.
However, elsewhere the Esc Key is not used as much. Press "Esc" in just about any program in Linux, Mac, and just about any other operating system.
Hope this explains why we don't see much more of the escape key in running programs. It is a Microsoft key generally, and not used anywhere else much.