Hi, Interesting thread, although I am a bit late.
2011/4/18 Bret Johnson <bretj...@juno.com>: >>> - MS-DOS keyb.com should be used instead of FreeDOS keyb.exe. > >> Of course we cannot do that because we have no license for that. >> Can you be more specific? Are there any particular problems with >> FreeDOS KEYB? Are you using the current version? I myself like >> MKEYB by Tom Ehlert - fewer layouts and features but very small. > > The problem is that none of the KEYB "replicas" are fully functional > replacements for MS KEYB. MS KEYB actually does two things. The first is to > provide alternative keyboard layouts (e.g., the Brazilian layout that Marcos > uses and the German layout that Eric uses). All of the KEYB replicas that > I'm aware of do this. > > The other thing that MS KEYB does is replace the hardware/firmware keyboard > BIOS with a new software keyboard BIOS. NONE of the KEYB replicas (at least > none that I'm aware of) do this. > Interesting. Besides the fact that there are a couple of bugs in FD-KEYB, that I should be fixing this summer finally, this interests me. The "standard" use of FD-KEYB, with lesser memory footprint, does use INT 15h, 4Fh for its function (as I think mkeyb) does. But you can install an alternative int 9h interrupt handler if you use the /9 option. It does NOT do all that the BIOS does, as in order to save space, it only handles keystrokes that differ from the standard BIOS (assumed "US") keyboard does. Also you cannot (yet) program the keyboard layout to simulate some special keys that (de)activate the BIOS flags, such as Caps/Num/Scroll lock, shift, etc. But I was wondering what else may I be leaving out. > I actually have several programs that simulate keystrokes (MOUSKEYS, JOYKEYS, > SCANCODE, and USBKEYB). However, in order to simulate keystrokes properly, > the BIOS must be "compatible" with the keyboard simulation as provided by the > programs. Some hardware/firmware BIOS's are compatible, while others aren't. > If you don't ever use these programs, or if your BIOS is compatible, MS KEYB > is not needed. However, if you use any of these programs, and your BIOS is > incompatible, you need to replace the keyboard BIOS with a new one that is > compatible. MS KEYB does this, and is the only program I'm aware of that > does. I am also curious to know, because I was thinking that by 3.0, I would remove all the pre-AT stuff (for easier maintainance), and leave only INT 15h, 4Fh stuff, but why would you want to "simulate keystrokes properly"? Aitor ------------------------------------------------------------------------------ All of the data generated in your IT infrastructure is seriously valuable. Why? It contains a definitive record of application performance, security threats, fraudulent activity, and more. Splunk takes this data and makes sense of it. IT sense. And common sense. http://p.sf.net/sfu/splunk-d2d-c2 _______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
