🚀 go-pugleaf

Ian W.Derrick (Ian.Derrick@GECM.COM) wrote:
: A while ago I was trying something along these lines but I could not
: detect F11 and F12 from my keyboard F1 through F10 were OK. Is there
: something different about these two keys, I never did manage to detect a
: key press from F11 or F12. I never found an answer to this, would anyone
: like to pass comment now .....

       This arises as a result of the original IBM PC
only having ten function keys, in two vertical rows
at the left end of the keyboard.
       The TIPC came out in early 1983 with 12 keys
across the top, and the AT (80x86) machines had 12,
but F-12 would have had to be 0,70 which was already
assigned to the right side of the keyboard,
       The TIPC was an almost compatible, but it did
follow IBM PC key assignments, so F-11 was 0,8 and
f-12 was 0,9.
       Clone AT keyboards may have several different
assignments in the lookup table for F-11 and F-12,
I just looked at my function key assignments and
I think it is 0,133 and 0,134 for this keyboard.
       I think some keyboards also use 0,32 and
0,33 but there are not too many available codes
in the lookup table, so it shouldn't be too hard
to find them with an organized search, I think
you can be sure that if there are keys on the
keyboard, they do send codes, but I don't know
the reason why some compiler routines will not
detect them.
       The first thing I did in programming was
to write a programm called shoxxkey, but it will
_NOT_ always detect F-11 and F-12, I either have
to look in the DOS manual, in the keyboard instruction
book, or just try the few possibilities in unused
key assignments.
      But if I am going to distribute a program, 
I either do not assign F-11 and F-12, or else I 
assign F11 and F-12 to be the same as F-9 and F-10. 
      I wrote a program that writes a .com file to
aassign the function keys with ANSI.SYS installed,
but never really finished it because of the different
assignments.    I have no intention of ever releasing
it either as source, or aas an executable, it might
be used as a toy. :-)

Regards,

Joe.Fischer    The Invisible Typist    invisible-tech.com