Xref: utzoo gnu.emacs.help:1390 comp.emacs:10268 Path: utzoo!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!sdd.hp.com!zaphod.mps.ohio-state.edu!magnus.ircc.ohio-state.edu!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unreplyable!garbage From: eichin@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Mark W. Eichin) Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs Subject: Re: DEC terminals, META KEY? Message-ID: <9103071639.AA04786@e40-008-6.MIT.EDU> Date: 7 Mar 91 16:39:30 GMT Sender: daemon@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu Followup-To: gnu.emacs.help Organization: Gatewayed from the GNU Project mailing list help-gnu-emacs@prep.ai.mit.edu Lines: 24 >> Some recent talk in the user group has brought to mind my >>favorite unanswered GNU emacs question: "can the COMPOSE CHARACTER >>found on many DEC terminals be made into a META key?" >> Specifically, I am using a VT240 (no - I was not the one who >>decided to buy it - I inherited it). I once knew someone who worked on the microcode for the vt200 series (we were interested in doing exactly this, back in emacs 17.63 or so. Yes, that's a long time :-) The answer was "only if you burn new ROMs" and that wasn't a likely option... the current "function" of the compose key is to generate european (and other?) characters, one example I think was c with a cedilla beneath it, you'd just type " <,>" and get the right character (something above 128.) Note that this behavior was specific to the vt200 series; the LK201 keyboard itself is also used for the microvax, vs2000, vs3100, ds3100, etc workstations, and all of them support Compose as Meta (at least running X11.) I don't recall any technical reason that DEC couldn't produce ROMs to operate in Meta mode, but as far as I know they've never done so, or at least not marketed them (I've got some friends at DEC that I'm sure would have them if they existed.) _Mark_ MIT Student Information Processing Board Watchmaker Computing