-=> Quoting Roy J. Tellason to Leonard Erickson <=-

 RJT> Leonard Erickson wrote in a message to Joe Nicholson:
 
 LE> The backspace worked in "units", with various characters taking
 LE> from 1 to 5 units. I had a cheat sheet so I could tell how far I
 LE> had to backspace for a particular character.

 RJT> The few times I encountered one of those I could've used such a cheat
 RJT> sheet.   Much confusion,  there... 

Which is why I sat down and "wasted" an hour with a few pieces of
typing paper *creating* the cheat sheet. :-)

 RJT> I too wish I could find better keyboards,  and of the box of them I
 RJT> have here I'm thinking that perhaps some of them will be better than
 RJT> others,  rather than the cheap crap that's all over the place.  I
 RJT> remember seeing ads years back where some keyboards were selling for
 RJT> close to $100,  while others were way cheaper,  and didn't get it at
 RJT> the time.  These days I don't think I'd have that much of a problem
 RJT> with understanding it.   

I've got a keyboard I bought thru where I was working. It cost me $99.
In 1990. And it had a 5 *year* warranty.

We had a few keyboards from them come in with flaky behavior but they
exchanged them ok. We just made a policy of sticking new keyboards on
*our* system for several days before issuing them. 

I've still got that keyboard, but it has an AT type connector and
doesn't have things like the Windows keys.

 RJT> The other thing that bugs me,  particularly with the keyboard that's
 RJT> being used on the linux box,  is that it's got those stupid
"windows"
 RJT> keys on it.  I know that a great majority of computer users out there
 RJT> are into that OS,  and are into mousing around rather than using the
 RJT> keyboard,  but the last time I was in a computer store I asked the guy
 RJT> if there were *ANY* new keyboards available that didn't have those, 
 RJT> and the answer was an unhesitant "no".  I don't know if that means
 RJT> that they just weren't gonna stock any,  or if it means that they
 RJT> didn't know of any available from their distributor,  or what, but I'm
 RJT> still hoping that I can find some out there. 

Why? they generate prefectly valid keycodes, and whatever OS you are
running, you can find a way to tell the keyboard drivers to recognize
them for whatever.

Heck, that's one of the reasons I'm thinking about spending $75 to get
an old Keytronic KB3270PC keyboard refurbished. It's got an insane
number of keys and can generate darn near all of the possible keycodes.

Though a lot of the newwer keyboards with the web & mail "buttons" on
them can generate quite a few of the extras. (Wish I could track down a
list of the definitions MS has assigned to those in windows). 

 RJT> Those ones I tossed,  I snagged the cable and little board out of
 RJT> there first. I figure that with the interface there's a matrix that'll
 RJT> sense and report 128 different switch closures,  there oughta be
 RJT> something I can do with those.  Anybody with ideas on that,  feel free
 RJT> to jump in.  :-)  

Actually, several of the keycodes are reserved. And there's actually
translation code in that chip. It won't necessarily *recognize* keys
that didn't exist on the keyboard you took it from.

But yeah, I plan to do that next time I junk a keyboard myself.

One thing to check for when buying a keyboard, at least if it's
someplace that has them out where you can play with them. Check and see
if the letters are printed on the keys or molded into them. The latter
is usually a sign of a better quality keyboard. It also means that you
won't get the situation where after a few months, it's getting hard to
tell the M and N keys apart.


--- FMailX 1.60