Xref: utzoo comp.editors:213 comp.sys.amiga:20330
Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!husc6!bloom-beacon!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!iuvax!inuxc!att!alberta!ubc-cs!faculty.cs.ubc.ca!manis
From: manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis)
Newsgroups: comp.editors,comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Misbehavior in Jove
Message-ID: <3243@ubc-cs.UUCP>
Date: 21 Jun 88 03:09:01 GMT
References: <1618@iscuva.ISCS.COM> <2146@sugar.UUCP>
Sender: nobody@ubc-cs.UUCP
Reply-To: manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis)
Organization: UBC Department of Computer Science, Vancouver, B.C., Canada
Lines: 26

In article <2146@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes:
>Why don't any of the Micro emacses implement REAL meta keys? Both the IBM-PC
>and the Amiga have these nice ALT keys in a real convenient spot, just ready
>for use as a metakey. Do the implementors really prefer hitting ESC, or have
>they just forgotten that ESC is just a kludge?

Unfortunately, IBM (and Atari, who copied IBM's keyboard layout) chose
to make ALT not be a real meta key. ALT does not set a "bucky bit";
rather, it generates a function key code. Not all keys may be
qualified with ALT: only the letters and digits may be so honoured.
And, finally, ALT ignores the case of letters: ALT-A is the same code
as ALT-a. 

One could of course read from the keyboard, rather than using the
brain-damaged BIOS. I believe (though I'm not sure) that one gets
key-up and key-down codes, including from the shift, ctl, and alt
keys. However, IBM in particular has a habit of making keyboards which
are incompatible with last year's model, and hiding the differences in
the BIOS. 


Vincent Manis                    | manis@cs.ubc.ca
The Invisible City of Kitezh     | manis@cs.ubc.cdn
Department of Computer Science   | manis@ubc.csnet
University of British Columbia   | uunet!ubc-cs!manis
<<NOTE NEW ADDRESS>>             |