Re: Fwd: Xy4/DOS quirk?

[Wolfgang Bechstein wolfie@xxxxxxxx]

Jeff  had a problem with stray ASCII characters
being inserted when hitting the the ALT key plus the left or right
cursor key, and Carl Distefano  whose
expertise is impressive and advice usually excellent, recommended to
prepend func NI to any key that dumps a stray character, concluding

> In any case, there's an easy fix.

I only wish it were so. I have been having the same problem for ages,
and all relevant entries in my keyboard file *have had the NI for
ages*. For example, the entry in the ALT table reads

75=NI,EL

yet, when I hit Alt left cursor, a diamond gets inserted. When I hit
Alt left cursor in the numeric keypad, the cursor jumps to the left
end of the line, like I want it to. I have readjusted my typing habits
so that I rarely reach for the "wrong" cursor key, but still, it
would be nice if there actually were a fix. I am using XyDOS 4.018
under Windows 98, but the problem also existed with earlier versions
of XyDOS 4, and also under Windows 95 or plain DOS. The keyboard
itself is a generic, otherwise problem-free no-name product from
Taiwan or somewhere, but I have used two or three other keyboards and
had the same problem. Interestingly, the dedicated cursor keys on my
Compaq laptop work as expected and insert no stray characters, using
the same version of Xy and Windows.

Here's wondering: did inserting NI fix the problem in Jeff's case,
and are there any others out there getting stray characters even with
NI's in the keyboard file?

(I had been meaning to put this to the list for ages, but the above
exchanged finally prompted me to overcome my inborn sloth.)

Wolfgang Bechstein
wolfie@xxxxxxxx