Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!cernvax!chx400!ugun2b!ugsc2a!fisher
From: fisher@sc2a.unige.ch (Markus Fischer)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.pc
Subject: Re: Enhanced Keyboards...how does your machine recognize it?
Message-ID: <158@sc2a.unige.ch>
Date: 12 Jan 90 12:37:46 GMT
References: <1990Jan10.023642.15851@ug.cs.dal.ca>
Organization: University of Geneva, Switzerland
Lines: 43

In article <1990Jan10.023642.15851@ug.cs.dal.ca>, walker@ug.cs.dal.ca (Paul D. Walker) writes:
> [...]
> Anyway, on to my question.  I have an AT with an enhanced keyboard.  I am 
> having a slight problem with it, however.  The machine does not want to 
> recognize that it is an enhanced keyboard.  This means that it does not 
> recognize the F11 and F12 keys, nor will it send seperate scan codes for 
> the 'grey' keys.
> [...]

This is wrong.  You say: `` *it* does not recognize the F11 and F12 keys, nor
will *it* send seperate scan codes for the `grey' keys. ''

The probles is the two `it's are not the same...  The keyboard *does* send a
scan code whenever you push or release a key. It even sends the `pushed' scan
code repeatedly when you hold the key down.  These codes are then interpreted
by the keyboard driver (the internal BIOS one or a loaded keyboard driver), and
a resulting character or extended code is stored in the 15-char keyboard buffer,
which the current program might then read.

The first `it' is the keyboard driver, the second is the keyboard itself.

I also have an AT with an extended keyboard, and it's true that the `grey'-Home
and the `Shift-7'-Home, for instance, are treated the same way by my keyboard
driver (i.e. the same extended code is send to the buffer).  BTW: the same is
true for `keypad'-7 and `numpad'-7, if you havn't noticed...  It's true also
that *no* extended code is send for F11 and F12, but then there isn't either for
(say) Ctrl-`keypad'-4.

Maybe you have noticed that some programs use `numpad'-5 (several TSR's), or
Ctrl-PgUp (DOS-EDIT, WordPerfect), even though these key-combinations arn't
recognized by the keyboard driver (i.e. no extended code is send to the
keyboard buffer).  This is because these programs hook the keyboard interrupt
themselves, and thus override the standard interpretation of scan-codes.

But let's go back to the F11 and F12 keys.  Most programs wouldn't recognize
the extended codes send by the keyboard driver anyway (it's still a shame that
no codes are generated, I agree).  If you want to use them, you will have to
hook the keyboard interrupt yourself.  (WP 5 does this, and you can assign
a macro to these keys...)

Hm, this grew longer than I expected, I hope this will be useful, though.

Markus Fischer, Dpt. of Anthropology, Geneva.