Spare Key-- Keyboard driver patch to allow power-on key on Standard and Extended ADB Keyboards (used with Mac II's, LC's, SE's, and Classics) to be used as more than just a power-on switch.
If you find this utility useful, a donation of $5 (or whatever you think it is worth to you) would be greatly appreciated.
Send donations, comments, inquiries directly to me at
Ryoji Watanabe
P. O. Box 160191
Cupertino, CA 95016-0191
You can freely make and distribute copies under the following conditions: 1) Do not distribute versions of the file which you have modified in any way. 2) Do not distribute copies for profit. 3) Always distribute this README file with any copies you make. 4) Understand that I am not responsible for any loss incurred through the use of this file.
USER INFORMATION:
To use:
Put the file "Spare Key" in you System Folder and reboot. Subsequently, pressing the power-on after the Mac is on will be equivalent to typing "control-Esc" (i.e. holding down the "control" key and typing the "Esc" key).
So what?
The MacroMaker utility (or anything similar) can then be programmed to do whatever you want when "control-Esc" is typed, or now equivalently when the power-on key is hit.
E.g.
I have MacroMaker set up to invoke an FKEY which in turn snaps me into the MacsBug debugger when the power-on key is hit. Another use I can imagine is to tell MacroMaker to type "command-Q", the nearly universal quit command, when the power-on key is hit. Or, you can even have the power-on key mean "shutdown" (i.e. the Finder menu item "shutdown"), if you can't stand asymmetry!
And, at no additional cost:
You can also have MacroMaker assign SEPARATE meanings to combination like command + power-on key, shift + power-on key, etc.-- all except combination with the control key, (because it gets pressed automatically, so to speak, with the power-on key being initially equivalent to control-Esc [sorry: SOMETHING had to give]).
To remove this feature:
Just remove the "Spare Key" file from your System Folder and reboot. The program does not modify or create any files, so your system will be back to the way it was before.
Caveats:
If you have programs that already use the power-on key for something, then this utility will compete with them for the power-on key's signal, and I don't know what the result will be. (May MY utility win!)
For the hacker:
You can set up the utility to make the power-on key initially equivalent to something other than "control-Esc", if that is unsuitable. The "Spare Key" file contains a resource of type "data" and named "keycodes" that contains a sequence of bytes terminated by $FF. This sequence is the exact lowest level KEYCODES (documented in the Macintosh Hardware Reference) that get sent (as if you typed them) when the power-on key is hit (except for the final $FF, which can't mean any key anyways). The sequence must explicitly include keycodes for for "key up" transitions as well as "key down". You can put up to 20 bytes (not counting the final $FF) here.
For instance, it is possible to "hardcode" the power-on key to mean "command-Q" so that it will do that always without having to use MacroMaker. But that would not make a good TOOL that does exactly what the system needs: changing the result of typing the power-on key from something in never-never land to something (preferably general) that some other part of the system can easily do something with.
Acknowledgement:
I thank Shinzo Watanabe (my father) for suggesting that the power-on key can be used with modifier keys, and for pointing out that there are other existing utilities (with inferior icons, I understand) that my utility may conflict with. These considerations have been happily incorporated. I thank all of you who reported that Version 1.1 doesn't work with the Extended keyboard-- Spare Key has been fixed to work with the Extended keyboard in version 1.2.
