Re: Keyboard Questions

On 20 Feb 02 at 19:55, CAD_CAM_EDM_DRO@yahoogroups.c is alleged to have
scribbled:

> Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:47:23 -0600
> From: "J. Craswell" <jay@...>
> Subject: Keyboard Questions
>
> Which means that, if I'm using the keyboard as my jog, I can change the
> typematic rate and step the motors a little faster. Sounds like a good
> addition for TurboCNC.
>
> *Yes, you can do this. BTW (By the way) the standard typematic rate that is
> set when you accept the standard options is unbearably slow. Most people
> don't fiddle with it and thus are unsatisfied with the Keyboard. I looked
> into this problem some time ago in an attempt to see the Key Down and Up
> strokes only and unless I missed something all you can get is the data
> stream with the repeates done for you <sigh> It's annoying but one of many

the typematic rate setting is done in the CMOS setup on most newer
computers. 'newer' means those made since the 398/486 transition or so.

to get to it, doa cold boot and wait for the message that says something
like 'press DEL to enter Setup'
do that
and scratch around in there for the typematic rate setting. usually under
'BIOS settings'
DON'T change anything else, your machine may stop working entirely,
particularly under Windoze

> things that Microsoft or maybe this is IBM? Felt they needed to do to make
> it "better" for you. The Keyboard has some other faults such as masking
> certian keystrokes depending on how you are reading it and so forth. I
> built up a system with a keyboard of it's own and I think it's much better
> to do repeats in software you can control directly.

assuming one could set the typematic rate WAY up in the CMOS, one could
then do rate restriction in software as needed?

I don't yet know of any way to access the CMOS rate setting from a running
program, esp under Windows this may be entirely impossible.

I do know that if you rewrite most of the BIOS keyboard handler in
assembler you can do some spectacular stuff (-: One handler I did years
ago took input from the keyboard and the serial port and output the
appropriate keyboard codes for everything 'just as though it had been
typed). On the serial port was a bar code reader.


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