drk@well.UUCP (Doug Kaye) (10/26/85)
We are about to embark upon a development project for a memory-resident Terminal emulator. This emulator will be activated via so-called Hot Keys, as is Sidekick. We are concerned that our emulator and Sidekick be able to co exist, including the ability to invoke SK on top of our emulator (and vice versa?). First of all, does anyone know which (or both) technique SK uses for grabbing the keyboard? (1) Intercept keyboard interrupts, and/or (2) Intercept BIOS calls for keyboard. If anyone is interested in giving us some pointers in memory-resident "keyboard-takeover" applications, please contact me directly. On the other hand, if you're interested in sharing your knowledge with others why not start it out right here. Doug Kaye Rational Data Systems, Inc. 5725 Paradise Drive Corte Madera, CA 94925 415/924-0840 ihnp4!hplabs!well!drk
faisal@smu (10/29/85)
SideKick installs in the timer interrupt. Here is the basic algorithm:
at every timer tick do
{
execute the orignal timer tick interrupt;
if (the keybaord status word indicates that Ctl and Alt are held down)
if ((the system is stable)&&(sk is not currently active))
enter sidekick
else beep;
}
Once sidekick has been entered, I believe the standard keyboard interrupts
are used.
Off the track but indirectly related:
One of the things you have to watch out for when running a resident prog.,
which alters the display, and SK is this sequence:
1) bring up SK
2) bring up second program which rewrites screen
3) close SK
4) close 2nd prog.
5) bring up SK.
Surprise!!! When SK was closed at step 3, it saved the display contents
(which were generated at step 2), and now it redisplays this stuff because
it thinks it is the SK window.
Faisal @ SMUmjm@cantor.UUCP (Michael Markowitz) (10/31/85)
> First of all, does anyone know which (or both) technique SK uses for > grabbing the keyboard? > (1) Intercept keyboard interrupts, and/or > (2) Intercept BIOS calls for keyboard. > > Doug Kaye > Rational Data Systems, Inc. > 5725 Paradise Drive > Corte Madera, CA 94925 > 415/924-0840 > > ihnp4!hplabs!well!drk Sidekick intercepts the following interrupts: 08, 09, 10, 13, 16, 1C, 21, 25, 26, 28 Unfortunately that's all I know--hope it helps. Michael Markowitz Dept. of Math. Sciences Loyola Univ. of Chicago Chicago, IL 60626 (312) 508-3567 ihnp4!gargoyle!cantor!abel!mjm