RE: 'adding tilde to kbd file '

[Carl Distefano CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx]

Reply to note from "Harrison, Shawn" 
Mon, 7 Jun 1999 07:38:56 -0500

-> When I press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+255, it waits for two more
-> characters, interprets those two characters as a Hex
-> character, and produces the specified character. For instance,
-> pressing the following sequence:
->
-> 	Ctrl+Alt+Shift+255,7,E
->
-> immediately produces a tilde.

Well, I referred to Ctrl-Alt-Shift plus char number because Arthur
was loading XY4-3.KBD. (He got the tilde, by the way. Told me so
privately.) Your keyboard may be different. What's mapped to Ctrl-
Alt-Shift-2 and Ctrl-Alt-Shift-5 in your .KBD file? From the
behavior you're describing -- "immediately produces a tilde" is a
dead giveaway -- one of those keys is generating a 1-byte 255, which
immediately binds to the next 2 bytes -- meaning, in terms of .KBD
file syntax, that one of those keys has a 3-byte 255 mapped to it.
Look at the relevant key assignments in LIST.COM or a hex viewer.
You'll probably see something like [keycode]= FF or, in a hex
viewer, ... 3D FF 46 46 0D 0A ...

Actually, having a lone 255 assigned to a key can be quite useful --
if you know your hex codes. But the keystrokes I was discussing
with Arthur presumed that functions R0 through R9 are assigned to
the corresponding numeric keys in TABLE=CTRL+ALT+SHIFT, as they are
in XY4-3.KBD. Those funcs are probably there *somewhere* in your
KBD file -- SEarch for them, then use the appropriate shifted keys.
Or, simpler, use Robert's PUTCHAR utility to produce a 3-byte 255,
thus: PUTCHAR 255d,3 or PUTCHAR FFh,3.

It bears repeating that these 3-byte sequences that display as
single Ascii chars are a uniquely "XyWrite" phenomenon. Take the
same file and TYPE it at the DOS prompt, or inspect it in a file
viewer, and those 3-byters will look like three distinct characters
-- three ordinary bytes.

--------------
Carl Distefano
CLDistefano@xxxxxxxx
http://users.datarealm.com/xywwweb/