Hello, Old thread, but to clarify things.
On Sun, 14 Aug 2016 at 17:22, Kai Schaetzl <mailli...@conactive.com> wrote: > I've been trying for the last two hours or so to find out how to use a > German keyboard with FreeDOS. There is enough information, but some of the > files cannot be downloaded anywhere. I'm running in circles. Or I'm > missing something obvious. > > What I found out: I have to use keyb with a command line GR,,GR GR.KL /E > at runtime. And you need the corresponding .KL file. Fine. > Information from: http://help.fdos.org/de/hhstndrd/base/keyb.htm (German) > This page also says one can download the KL files from the links below on > that page. > Unfortunately, you can't. So, getting at the .KL files is a dead end. > No, you do not need KL files. To clarify how this works: think of: * KEY files like .C files * KL files like .O files * KEYBOARD.SYS files and alike, like the final EXE file You don't need the KEY or KL files at all, unless you want to modify the way the layout (or better, the layout/codepage combination) works, which is not required for most ot the users. You don't also need KC/KLIB (which would be the ones to create the .KL and the KEYBOARD.SYS files for the same reason). So how to find what you need? The syntax and behaviour is much that of MS-DOS. That is, a piece of software that integrates with the console management system (not merely replaces BIOS management). I am basically going to use the HTML Help files: https://home.mnet-online.de/willybilly/HTMLhelp-110/en/index.htm The KEYBOARD.SYS and friends are packed inside the KPDOS, if you look on that page, you find https://home.mnet-online.de/willybilly/HTMLhelp-110/en/hhstndrd/other/kpdos.htm WIthin KEYBOARD.SYS: G ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Germany (Standard) (1) gr, de 858, 850, 437, 852 EGA 859 EGA2 30009 EGA11 30020 EGA14 (Dual-layer) gr453 858, 850, 437, 852, 853 EGA 859, 775 EGA2 30009 EGA11 30020 EGA14 So you can use the standard german layout or the dual-layer. What is the codepage for you? For most western Europeans it is 850 (or 858, which is 850 + euro sign). They KEYB HTML Page perhaps can be improved to explain this a bit better Thus, KEYB GR,858,KEYBOARD.SYS which should come after the settings of DISPLAY DISPLAY CON=(EGA,,1) MODE CON CODEPAGE PREPARE ((858) EGA.CPX) > Another page says that the .KL files are part of the KPDOS package. Which This is not quite right, but they are obtained FROM the KEY files in the KPDOS package > is available. There are two packages (kp301s and kp301x), but no word > which explains what they contain. The s package contains the .key files > and the x package four keyboard.sys files. No idea what the difference is, > it's explained nowhere. Anyway, the s package contains the key files and > another page explains that you can use kc to compile the key file to a KL > file. Don't know if you need anything else for that. But: you cannot get > the kc package anywhere. Either there are no download links or it points > back to > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/keyb/kblayout/ > or > http://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/keyb/ As said, the KC compiler is not usually needed. For a while, I had trouble finding the compiler itself, as if it had been moved or deleted from ibiblio. The thing is VERY confusing, because being a program which has independent versions, it can only be found under the KEYB 2.00 folder: https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/keyb/fdkeyb-2.0/kc200s.zip https://www.ibiblio.org/pub/micro/pc-stuff/freedos/files/dos/keyb/fdkeyb-2.0/kc200x.zip Yet another page mentions cpidos. But that contains only some ega.sys > files and I'm not sure what they are for. Video driver? > They are codepage information files, that you need to manage the glyphs of the characters printed by your display driver. This is frustrating. Where can I get this kc package or the KL files? > It is, as I see of a combination of HTML documentation and file placement that can greatly be improved :( For the latter, I call Jeremy or Jim if they can do something to sort this out. For the former, I am not sure if I can simply find HTML-Help and GitLab, modify it myself and commit would make it work. Aitor
_______________________________________________ Freedos-user mailing list Freedos-user@lists.sourceforge.net https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/freedos-user
