Hi Thierry !
>Today, I wrote a small Q40/Q60 utility: CAPSMON v1.00
>
>A "CAPSLOCK monitor" that makes for the absence of the keyboard
>CAPSLOCK LED support on Q40/Q60 (why the hell are the keyboard
>LEDs disabled ?!? Peter ?).
Because I never look at them anyway ;-)
While XT keyboards were still intelligent enough to handle the CapsLock LED
by themselves, the AT or MF II ones need output from the keyboard
controller to switch them.
(BTW: Several keyboards can still be switched into XT mode, look for a
small switch at the back. As many new keyboards no longer have this
feature, I decided to support the AT or MF II signals by the hardware.)
I had already developed support for output to the keyboard for the Q40/Q60,
but I had to remove it again, due to lack of enough logic gates and routing
resources on the according logic chip.
The logic chips for the Q40 and Q60 are not too big (2000 gates each) so I
had to accept some compromise. But they have one big advantage: The have
always been available without problems and they still are! This was an
important design goal, not just price and features.
Ask Stuart Honeyball and Nasta to hear what trouble logic chips can cause
if they are no longer manufactured.
Peter
