peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) (06/18/88)
In article <1618@iscuva.ISCS.COM>, jimc@iscuva.UUCP writes: > I have never had any problem here -- I just lean on the Meta (Alt) key and > type BC. Word's capitalized and I'm back where I was. A real meta key is > sure nice! (A pair's even better, one on each end of the spacebar.) Why don't any of the Micro emacses implement REAL meta keys? Both the IBM-PC and the Amiga have these nice ALT keys in a real convenient spot, just ready for use as a metakey. Do the implementors really prefer hitting ESC, or have they just forgotten that ESC is just a kludge? -- -- `-_-' Peter (have you hugged your wolf today?) da Silva. -- U Mail to ...!uunet!sugar!peter, flames to /dev/null. -- "A foolish consistancy is the hobgoblin of little minds".
mic@ut-emx.UUCP (Mic (... K[a-z]+) Kaczmarczik) (06/19/88)
In article <2146@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >Why don't any of the Micro emacses implement REAL meta keys? Both the IBM-PC >and the Amiga have these nice ALT keys in a real convenient spot, just ready >for use as a metakey. Do the implementors really prefer hitting ESC, or have >they just forgotten that ESC is just a kludge? Amiga mg2a, recently posted to comp.sources.misc, has meta-key-mode, where hitting ALT and another key sets the 8th bit of the character code for that key. This is interpreted by the system independent code as a meta key. It's really nice to get all the meta functions in a single keystroke. You can also turn this mode off when you want to insert these characters into your buffer. Earlier versions (1a/b) relied on the keymap to set the 8th bit when you used the ALT key, so when Commodore changed the default keymap in 1.2, this no longer did what one might wish. My first approach was to just use the old 1.1 keymap, but after a while someone who uses the Dvorak keymap asked me to fix the meta key. Check it out. --mic-- -- Mic Kaczmarczik If you drink, don't drill. UT Austin Computation Center -- Matt Groening mic@emx.utexas.edu MIC@UTAIVC.BITNET
vkr@osupyr.mast.ohio-state.edu (Vidhyanath K. Rao) (06/20/88)
In article <2146@sugar.UUCP>, peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: > Why don't any of the Micro emacses implement REAL meta keys? Both the IBM-PC > and the Amiga have these nice ALT keys in a real convenient spot, just ready > for use as a metakey. The version called 'mg1b' for the Amiga does use the ALT key as a meta key. Its cousins too probably have that. But this is a complie time option and you may have to recompile. On top of that this works only if you use the 'usa0' keymap: '\200'|chr is considered as meta+chr. (Added inconvenience: The extra keys on the 500/2000 are inaccesible). May be somebody can write a module for emacs that takes the raw keycodes and converts them into what ever emacs wants. This is still a kludge. Apparently 'alt+shift' is not done right on the Amiga.
manis@faculty.cs.ubc.ca (Vincent Manis) (06/21/88)
In article <2146@sugar.UUCP> peter@sugar.UUCP (Peter da Silva) writes: >Why don't any of the Micro emacses implement REAL meta keys? Both the IBM-PC >and the Amiga have these nice ALT keys in a real convenient spot, just ready >for use as a metakey. Do the implementors really prefer hitting ESC, or have >they just forgotten that ESC is just a kludge? Unfortunately, IBM (and Atari, who copied IBM's keyboard layout) chose to make ALT not be a real meta key. ALT does not set a "bucky bit"; rather, it generates a function key code. Not all keys may be qualified with ALT: only the letters and digits may be so honoured. And, finally, ALT ignores the case of letters: ALT-A is the same code as ALT-a. One could of course read from the keyboard, rather than using the brain-damaged BIOS. I believe (though I'm not sure) that one gets key-up and key-down codes, including from the shift, ctl, and alt keys. However, IBM in particular has a habit of making keyboards which are incompatible with last year's model, and hiding the differences in the BIOS. Vincent Manis | manis@cs.ubc.ca The Invisible City of Kitezh | manis@cs.ubc.cdn Department of Computer Science | manis@ubc.csnet University of British Columbia | uunet!ubc-cs!manis <<NOTE NEW ADDRESS>> |