Henrique,
Thanks for giving this a good going over and a
thorough explanation.
But I think the critical difference between your
testing and mine is that you are in a Win98 DOS box using MS EDIT and I am on a
pure FreeDOS machine using FD EDIT.
The reference to a multimedia keyboard is from
Lester Vedrox's post, to which I was responding. I'm not using such a
keyboard here, nor would I expect that to make any difference.
--John Hupp
- Original Message -
From: Henrique Peron
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Cc: fd-devel
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 1:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Right-ALT key (topic was Customizing
Startup Files)
Hi John,
I have just tested the US keyboard(under
MS-DOS EDIT) and the Left_Alt works just like
Right_Alt.
If you haven'tprepared and selected any cp
(codepage), then you'llbe using the character table implemented in the
BIOS of your VGA adapter which, on 99.999% of the cases, is identical (in
encoding) to FreeDOS (and MS-DOS, IBM-DOS and probably any other DOS) cp437 and
that's why if you run KEYB under these conditions, it will work as if you had
prepared and selected that codepage. In that case, "KEYB US" should work just
like the US implementation of the keyboard BIOS extension.
If you haveactually prepared and selectedcp437 (or
cp850),"KEYB US" should still work just like the US implementation of the
keyboard BIOS extension.
The Right_Alt key only works differently
(i.e. like the AltGr key on international keyboards) if there's a
character associated to a given combination.If you're using cp858
(which is FreeDOS default), the Right_Alt key works as AltGr
only to AltGr+ 5 and AltGr + E,
whichdisplay the Euro sign.
For all the other combinations, Right_Alt
remains the same as Left_Alt.
Therefore, as far as I can see it, KEYB not only
sticks to the commitment of being 100% MS-DOS compatible as well as it enhances
MS-DOS KEYB functionality, since it allows you to encode your own layouts and
even extra layers, such as, for example, combining keys with Shift +
AltGr.
All my KEY encodings and testings are under a Win98
DOS Box. Perhaps KEYB behaves slightly different when working under FreeCOM
(and/or under FreeDOS EDIT).
(Definition of "KEY encodings": All the keyboard
layouts are encoded into *.KEY files.)
By the way, the issue of being a multimedia
keyboard won't probably have anything to do with that. All that happens is, your
multimedia keyboard has extra scancodes for its multimedia keys - which aren't
dealt withon standard KEY files so they'll remain "dead" unless you run
someprogram which handles them.
Henrique
- Original Message -
From:
John
Hupp
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Cc: Lester Vedrox
Sent: Wednesday, May 10, 2006 10:23
AM
Subject: [Freedos-user] Right-ALT key
(topic was Customizing Startup Files)
- Original Message -
From: Lester
Vedrox
To: freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net
Sent: Tuesday, May 09, 2006 4:17 PM
Subject: Re: [Freedos-user] Customizing Startup Files
Running US-Eng keyboard straight from BIOS (which is US anyways)
sounds like a good idea but I still can't get the right ALT key
working. The following approach didn't solve the problem either
(kb2pre4.zip):LH KEYB US,,C:\FDOS\BIN\KEYBOARD.SYSMaybe it's
because it's multimedia keyboard.
-
-
Lester,Regarding Right-ALT, I brought up the same issue with FD
Service Release 1.
The understanding I finally arrived at was that,
thoughRight-ALT does not work in FreeDOS the same way it does
inMS-DOS in a default US installation, this behavior is nonetheless by
design. It stems fromspecial uses of Right-ALT in international
keyboards, but special statusfor the key has been carried over into the
design of the default behavior and apparently even into the US implementation
of the keyboard BIOS extension.
I would still argue that the project's goal for a
"100% MS-DOS compatible" operating system means that, for US users, Right-ALT
should work the same as Left-ALT, but all-in-all, it is for me
asecond-level issue.
I follow with one of Eric Auer's replies to me
from last year.
--John Hupp
--
From: "Eric Auer" [EMAIL PROTECTED]To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Cc:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]Subject:
re: Re: Re: DOS news: loadfix, editDate: Friday, August 05, 2005 4:33
PM
Yes, Right-ALT *always* behaves on my system as I describe
it. functionality I would expect under MS-DOS 6.22 with a US keyboard
layout: e.g. Right-ALT+F would open the File menu just at Left-ALT+F
does...
This is by design - EDIT must not tamper with
