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From: thompson@PAN.SSEC.HONEYWELL.COM (John Thompson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.apollo
Subject: re: How to redefine keys
Message-ID: <9009180429.AA00289@pan.ssec.honeywell.com>
Date: 18 Sep 90 04:29:55 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 58




> I am looking for a way to remap all of the letters of the Apollo
> keyboard in order to implement the Dvorzak (sp?) keyboard layout.
Dvorak.

> My original plan was to use the 'kd' DM commands to do this, however,
> it seems that will only work for control and function keys etc.
Sure it does.  You can mess yourself over as thoroughly as you want!

> Is there another way of doing this?  In particular, I would like
> to change the keyboard layout to end up looking like:
> 
>   /   ,   .   P   Y     F   G   C   R   L     Top row
> 
>    A   O   E   U   I     D   H   T   N   S    Home row
> 
>     ;   Q   J   K   X     B   M   W   V   Z   Bottom row
Make a FILE with all the regular keydefs for functions, ctrls, etc.
In addition, put in a line for each 'normal' key in the manner
    kd 'A' es 'A' ke
    kd 'B' es 'B' ke
    ...
    kd 'Z' es 'Z' ke
    kd ' ' es ' ' ke
etc. etc. etc.
Save this file (/tmp/normal), and open up a pad, where you enter
    cmdf /tmp/normal                   but DON'T press RETURN.

Now set up a file (/tmp/dvorak) with all the funky defs you want
    kd 'Q' es '/' ke
    kd 'W' es ',' ke
    kd 'E' es '.' ke
etc. etc. etc.
Save this file as well, open up another pad, and type in
    cmdf /tmp/dvorak                   and press RETURN.

You have now modified your keydefs radically.  Since you made at least
one mistake, you may need to carefully cut and paste to define the
last couple keys like you meant to.  Remember that you need to generate
a "W" to change the "W" key to a comma (and you also need to be able to
generate "'"  ","  "e"  "s"  and  "k"  If you can't find one in your pads
to cut and paste, you can as a last ditch effort press the RETURN key
in the pad that's waiting to define everything normal again (and you thought
that was useless effort!)  You may want to save a copy of your machine-readable
keydefs (kept in user_data) as a final safety measure to help GOD fix
things up again when they're totally ruined.

Good luck!  It's not really hard, just error-prone!

John Thompson (jt)
Honeywell, SSEC
Plymouth, MN  55441
thompson@pan.ssec.honeywell.com

As ever, my opinions do not necessarily agree with Honeywell's or reality's.
(Honeywell's do not necessarily agree with mine or reality's, either)