NetNews Usenet Archive 1993 #1/NN_1993_1.iso/spool/comp/sys/atari/st/tech/6605

Text File | 1993-01-12 | 1.8 KB | 37 lines

Newsgroups: comp.sys.atari.st.tech
Path: sparky!uunet!pipex!warwick!dcs.warwick.ac.uk!leo
From: [e-mail] (Leo Hendry)
Subject: Re: Keyboard repeating keys
Message-ID: <[e-mail]>
Sender: [e-mail] (Network News)
Nntp-Posting-Host: slate
Organization: Department of Computer Science, Warwick University, England
References: <[e-mail]>
Date: Tue, 12 Jan 1993 14:19:47 GMT
Lines: 24

In article <[e-mail]> [e-mail] (Leo Weppelman) writes:
>I am looking for a way to make the keyboard processor handling the key
>repeat instead of the main processor. Is there anybody on the net who
>has ever did such a thing. The problem with the keyboard is that there
>is (as far as I know) no documentation. Even the german 'Profibuch' has
>no detailed info.

The book Atari ST Internals gives information about the keyboard processor,
whether you would call it detailed is another matter, and the book is badly
written, translated and short on examples.
  What do you mean exactly by making the keyboard processor handle autorepeat?
The way it normally works is to send a message to the main processor each time
a key is pressed, and again each time it is released.  From what I remember
the codes are the same as the scan codes returned by Bconin and various other
functions, and the code has the top bit cleared to indicate the key as been
pressed, or set to indicate the key has been released.
  As far as I know there is no way of configuring it to behave differently,
and there is no spare RAM on the chip to upload a routine of yours to do so.
  What exactly are you trying to do that lead you to ask this question (I
guess you are trying to write a game that reads the keyboard processor
directly for keyboard control)?  I might be able to suggest another way of
going about things.

- Leo