Re: DOS emulator

["Robert Holmgren" holmgren@xxxxxxxx]

** Reply to message from "Martin J. Osborne"  on
Sun, 19 Jan 2003 16:57:14 -0500


>> if NI is designed to mask the keystroke from the operating system, then Tame
>> won't even see them.)

> Yes---I understand the reason why Tame doesn't affect them.
> ... (E.g. if you press number pad 6 twice while holding down
> alt, you get ASCII 66.) If you want to assign alt + any of these keys
> in a XyWrite keyboard, you need to put NI in front of the assignment to
> avoid Windows from "seeing" the keystroke and putting ASCII 66 in your
> file (as well as whatever assignment you've made in your keyboard
> file).

That was true with old PC-DOS keyboard handlers, but it is not often true
today. I would try removing the NIs, perhaps selectively, and if that works OK,
go global. It works for me (Alt-6+6 does NOT put an Ascii-66 or "B"), and it
might also solve your Tame problem with these keys. Sometimes there are
specific keys or machines or situations that need NI -- but not every key or
machine.

> For example, I use alt + cursor pad 6 for NW; I put 103=NI,NW to
> avoid getting the superfluous characters.

Curious you should mention this. There's a bug or wierdness in the Windows
keyboard handler that generates the wrong scancodes for keys 100-103, the arrow
pad (cursor pad). On many machines, they return Shifted scancodes -- in other
words, they return the same Shifted scancode whether you hold down the Shift
key or not. You can find out for your machine by running IDKEY (IDKEY
is the simplest way by far to explore or edit your keyboard). Obviously, if
your machine returns a Shifted scancode, it means that to control these four
keys, you need to code, not the unshifted (lowercase) TABLE, but rather
TABLE=SHIFT (or LSHIFT, or whatever name you use). Very peculiar.

> David Thomas wrote that the are
> "handled differently" (or something like that)

This might be what he was referring to.

-----------------------------
Robert Holmgren
holmgren@xxxxxxxx
-----------------------------