Path: utzoo!utgpu!water!watmath!clyde!att!rutgers!ukma!husc6!linus!dartvax!eleazar.dartmouth.edu!earleh
From: earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.mac
Subject: Re: Is there a MacPlus Keyboard with a Control Key?
Message-ID: <10113@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU>
Date: 18 Sep 88 16:14:12 GMT
References: <1245@aucs.UUCP> <896@taux01.UUCP>
Sender: news@dartvax.Dartmouth.EDU
Reply-To: earleh@eleazar.dartmouth.edu (Earle R. Horton)
Organization: Society to make my life more fun.
Lines: 32

In article <896@taux01.UUCP> taux01!cyosta@nsc.UUCP (Yossie Silverman) writes:
>In article <1245@aucs.UUCP> peter@aucs.UUCP (Peter Steele) writes:
>>I've seen quite a few different extended keyboards for the MacPlus, but none
>>that have a control key like Apple's extended keyboard for the SE and II. Does
>>one exist and if not, why not? I would think that a control key would not be
>>an impossible feature for the MacPLus to support.
>
>I think that the reason you will never see a control key for a mac plus is
>that the hardware interface uses some of the control characters as interface
>control characters.  Basically this means that there is NO way using current
>system software and mac plus hardware to send certain characters over the 
>keyboard connection.  A solution would be to use an INIT to supplant the
>system keyboard driver and use a new keyboard which would "quote" or "escape"
>the control characters.  This would probably not work in all cases.  I base
>my thoughts on information from the ancient "Underground Inside Macintosh"
>paper.

     A simpler solution exists, if you are willing to do without your
Caps Lock key.  It is possible to write an INIT to patch the
GetNextEvent() trap call to convert characters to control characters
when the event received is a keyboard event and when the Caps Lock key
is down.  On a stock Mac Plus or original Macintosh keyboard, it is
possible to remove a little locking mechanism from the Caps Lock key
switch, and make this key behave mechanically like other keys.  This
solution will fool all applications which use GetNextEvent() to get
keyboard input into thinking that a control character was generated by
the keyboard when, in fact, the Caps Lock key had been held down.


Earle R. Horton. 23 Fletcher Circle, Hanover, NH 03755
(603) 643-4109
Sorry, no fancy stuff, since this program limits my .signature to three