Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!pacbell.com!ames!vsi1!octopus!sjsumcs!horstman
From: horstman@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu (Cay Horstmann)
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.programmer
Subject: Re: Ascii codes for 'Alt' keychords
Message-ID: <1990Dec19.044905.29411@sjsumcs.sjsu.edu>
Date: 19 Dec 90 04:49:05 GMT
References: <1990Dec14.221221.20958@cs.columbia.edu> <5409@rossignol.Princeton.EDU>
Reply-To: horstman@sjsumcs.SJSU.EDU (Cay Horstmann)
Distribution: na
Organization: San Jose State University
Lines: 28

In article <5409@rossignol.Princeton.EDU> yh@cs.Princeton.EDU (Yoichi Hamazaki) writes:
>In article <1990Dec14.221221.20958@cs.columbia.edu> olasov@cs.columbia.edu (Ben Olasov) writes:
>>I can't find Ascii codes for 'Alt' keychords anywhere (I know I'm probably looking in the wrong
>>places) - does anyone have them in emailable form?
>
>ASCII == Americal Standard Cord for Information Interchange.
>
>Is 'alt' key standard? Many of keyboard has no 'alt' key.
>(I know IBM-PC has one, but its a IBM's feture, not a standard)
>
>If 'alt' key is not standard, no standard cord exist!!
>--
> Yoichi HAMAZAKI	Dept. computer science, Princeton Univ.


No reason to exhibit the charm Princetonians are famous for :-)

The key codes returned by the Alt-keys can be found in the same reference
that lists the codes for cursor keys. I use the PS/2 Hardware Technical 
Reference (a blue ring binder).  It goes into some  detail how the scan codes
differ for various IBM keyboards (each one having been announced as the 
"standard" keyboard to end all keyboards). 

Actually, in a pinch you can write a small program that calls the DOS
interrupt (one of the very low-numbered services.) It returns a zero byte,
then when you call it again the extended code of that key combination.

Cay