home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- ARROW.COM - documentation by Andrew Marchant Shapiro - 4/26/88
- ----------------------------------------------------------------
-
- I found ARROW.COM a few days ago. It is fairly self-documenting
- (type 'ARROW' <CR>), but I thought I ought to include a few points.
-
- What ARROW does is to poke new values into the Kaypro arrow (or
- vector) key locations. What these values are depends upon how it is
- invoked. ARROW /G invokes standard MicroPro arrow definitions -- ^S,
- ^E, ^D, ^X. ARROW /F invokes Perfect Software key definitions -- ^B,
- ^P, ^F, ^N. This is of great advantage to anyone who uses software
- from both companies on a Kaypro, since it allows an easy transition
- between definitions that takes no memory and is completely transparent
- to the computer and user.
-
- Now, as originally distributed, ARROW toggled between MicroPro
- definitions and Perfect Writer's 'secondary' definitions, which are
- identical to the standard CP/M cursor keys: ^H, ^J, ^K, ^L. I
- altered ARROW to work with the primary PW set since I had rebound the
- secondary set to perform other functions (and to make PW more
- EMACS-like).
-
- Changing the key definitions that ARROW uses is fairly trivial: just
- inspect the last record of the program for the two sets (in hex) and
- change them as you like. This seems to work just fine.
-
- Now -- some good news: ARROW.COM seems to work on ALL Kaypro machines
- with the exception of the U-ROM (very late graphics machines). It was
- apparently set up to work with the 2'84 and 4'84 machines that came
- with the F and/or G ROMS, but it works fine on my machine, which has a
- TurboROM in place. If it works on an '83 (as I suspect it will) all
- the better. I have it on good (read: reputable dealer) authority
- that ALL Kaypros used the same locations for the vector keys EXCEPT
- the U-ROM machines (U-ROMS should be replaced at once anyway!).
- Unfortunately, they did not do the same with the number pad, so
- anything that redefines that is intensely hardware-specific.
-
- This program will probably be most useful to people like myself, who
- find that the Perfect Writer EMACS-like editor is the cat's PJs, but
- who find that the rest of the world expects WurstStar like code.
- There are other alternatives, but this is (probably) the most elegant.