Hi Pascal.

01-Mar-04 14:28:22, Pascal Schmidt wrote to Leonard Erickson


 PS> Hi Leonard! :-)

 LE>> Why? they generate prefectly valid keycodes, and whatever OS you
 LE>> are running, you can find a way to tell the keyboard drivers to
 LE>> recognize them for whatever.
 PS> Apart from the fact that Windows keyboards have smaller space bars
 PS> and I always end up hitting the Windows key instead of the right
 PS> alt key. This is a German keyboard, so you need right alt for some
 PS> pretty important keys

 PS> [ ] { } \ {at} | ~

 PS> Except for the {at}, all of those are quite important in programming
 PS> languages. I find that somehwat annoying. ;

Some languages use {at} too (eg it's used occasionally in Pascal). but yeah
C-like languages rely heavily on the rest.

 PS> I use an old heavy IBM keyboard connected to the PS/2 port via an
 PS> adaptor. No Windows keys

I had an old 95(?)-key XT keyboard where the number pad "5" key generated
a scancode when numlock was off (most keyboards don't generate a scancode
in that situation), this scancode would crash gwbasic and I'd have to
reboot.

after losing my efforts about 10 times (and figuring out how I was crashing
it) I made a little cover (4 walls and a roof) out of thin card that would
sit over the dangerous
key to prevent me from pressing it accidentally.

Another solution could be to add a spring under the keycap to make the bad
key harder to press :)

Some quality keyboards have stronger springs behind the special keys...

 -=> Bye <=-

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