🚀 go-pugleaf

phil@ux1.cso.uiuc.edu (Phil Howard) writes:

>Mischa_Sandberg@mindlink.bc.ca (Mischa Sandberg) writes:

>>Could someone tell me if there is a DOS or BIOS system call that
>>can tell me which key the user is about to press? One user of
>...
>>So here I am, stuck with my one last hope: that the hesitating
>>finger of the user, hovering over the "X" key, then the "Enter"
>>key, then the "Print Screen" key, can be detected by the hardware
>>(why DO they call it an 'enhanced' keyboard, anyway?), evaluated
>>for likelihood of being what the user really wants, and substitute
>>the correct keystroke instead.

>I believe this is going to require a further hardware upgrade.
Indeed. You should order part 1-A412751-65.1 from Intel and it'll
fly. There's no manual with it, tho'. Since this device rather heavily
depends on a persons psi and chara, you can never be sure where the
I/O ports end up, and what they'll do exactly. The only thing that's
guaranteed is that it doesn't interfere with your harddisk normally.

Which brings me to my second advice: There's a well-known short routine
for calculating the next hard disk head crash. This will be a tremendous
help to your customers. You can include warnings in your program of the
like: "When you haven't finished this in XXXX, it's gonna be all worthless",
or: "When you need a good excuse for not finishing your project make sure
you boss is around at XXXX, so he can witness the head crash."

The routine is of course:
	CLI
	MOV AL,0
	OUT 43h,AL
	NOP
	NOP
	JMP $+2
	IN AL,40h
	MOV AH,AL
	IN AL,40h
	STI
	XCHG AL,AH

Which leaves the number of estimated hours before the next head crash in AX.
 
-- Jan-Pieter
cornet@duteca.et.tudelft.nl