Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!clyde.concordia.ca!uunet!mcsun!sunic!tut!santra!tko-sony-7.hut.fi!justus
From: justus@tko-sony-7.hut.fi (Juhana R{s{nen)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: Re: Reading the keyboard without a window.
Keywords: keyboard,read,easy?
Message-ID: <1990Feb9.150945.29787@santra.uucp>
Date: 9 Feb 90 15:09:45 GMT
References: <6675@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu>
Sender: news@santra.uucp (Cnews - USENET news system)
Reply-To: justus@niksula.hut.fi (Juhana R{s{nen)
Organization: Helsinki University of Technology, Finland
Lines: 31

In article <6675@ucdavis.ucdavis.edu> rogers@iris.ucdavis.edu (Brewski Rogers) writes:
>For a game I am working on, I need to be able to read the keyboard
>without having a window open. I already have a routine that intercepts
>input events before intuition sees them, but before I write down the
>code and qualifier for each key, I'd like to know if there is an easier
>way, or if someone has already written it. While the game DOES multitask,
>the current interface with intuition is a total kludge, and we are trying
>to make it cleaner/more reliable.

One (quite brutal) way to do this is to read the keyboard input register
directly. The address is (I belive) $bfec01, and there you'll see the
latest keyboard event (both presses and releases). I'm not quite sure about
the keycodes, they don't seem to correspond to the raw key codes you get
from intuition.
Reading an address constantly to decide whether something has happened or not
is rather a clumsy thing to do, a better way would be to install an
interrupt server that is invoked by PORTS-interrupt, which occurs (at least)
every time a key is pressed or released. The interrupt-routine should
peek into the keyboard register and then, if necessary, send a signal to
the main program that there's a keypress available in a common memory area.
However, this requires assembly programming and a firm knowledge of what
one is doing (to keep the multitasking alive).

>------------------------------------------------------          Quantum _\/_
>2727 Eel                   Bruce (6502 RULES!) Rogers        |\  Duck  ( 0 0)
>Davis, Ca 95616            Quantum Duck Software,           |\ \______/ / \\\
>916-756-2684               rogers@iris.ucdavis.edu         |\ <  <     |   \/
>"My brain is on fire!"                                       \________/  Quark!


	Juhana Rasanen / justus@niksula.hut.fi