mwm@violet.berkeley.edu.UUCP (03/04/87)
Well, I finally got a copy of a rag with articles on the A2000. I'm going to act as if the articles are descriptions of the "real thing," though we all know better. I just wanted to comment on a couple of things: 1) That keyboard: YUCH! Got half the problems of the vt200/ISO (I think it's an ISO standard, anyway) keyboard, without managing to follow that standard. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it: a keyboard that even people who like the vt200 keyboard would hate. Looks like the pencil-holder is gone, too. And it's not plug-compatable with the A1000 keyboard so I could keep using that on one. 2) Multi-processor, multi-tasking, multi-DOS. Gee, I'm starting to feel old. This is the third time I've seen someone announce a computer with the ability to plug in multiple CPUs, and run software from other systems. Wonder why you never hear anything about the first two, hmm? Of course, this is the first time the base system already had a user/software base. 3) The A1000 is "transportable." I could put it, an expansion box, the RF/composite video toys and all the disks I needed into a carrying bag, and carry the bag onto a plane. Then plug it into whatever TV or monitor I could get my hands on. No RF/composite on the A2000. To big to carry, too, I bet. 4) I don't seem to be able to count. :-) 5) I don't think I'm gonna upgrade to one. I don't need IBM-PC compatability. I don't really want lots of other cards - just a SCSI/one-serial-port card. And my memory card won't work in it.... Gee, I just had a disgusting thought: How about an A2000, with the A2088, and a PC/370 card in the IBM slots? A 68000 controlling an 8088 controlling a re-microcoded 68000 emulating an IBM 370. Just so I can run VM/CMS at home :-). <mike
page@ulowell.UUCP (03/04/87)
mwm@violet.berkeley.edu(Mike Meyer) wrote: >1) That keyboard: YUCH! Reportedly, the 'feel' is better, and the ghosting problem is fixed. However, keyboard layout is a religious issue, like editors. Once you find one you like it's tough to move to another one. I *do* wish you could put your own keyboard into the A2000, since I'm not real happy about the layout either. I like the numeric pad, though. I've heard the mouse is cheaper (lower quality) too. Just speculation. >3) The A1000 is "transportable." Put a handle on the A2000! :-) Seriously, the A500 will be the winner here. At the BCS meeting Monday, RJ Mical (Father of Inhibition) said the A500 will be "$150 more than the C-64." I do think he was speaking figuratively, however...I can't imagine an Amiga for <$300, although you never know what the Wizards of Westchester will do for cost-reduction. That in mind, if an A500 goes for <$500, it should be incredibly popular (providing Commodore decides to TELL somebody). Hell, it beats buying a straight ASCII/ANSI terminal. Maybe I'll buy two and use one as an A1000 terminal, and buy a nice NLQ printer too, all for the price of an A2000. Last night, while reading the BYTE article (did you read the part about CBM having UNIX up in house already? System V, alas...), I was telling my wife about the A500, and said "maybe we should buy one for you to do your word processing on." When I said it might be around $500, she turned from the A1000 (she was playing CLUE and had mg1a running on an overlapped screen), looked at me somberly and said "yeah, but I want to be able to do THIS (pointing at the display) ... can I do it with a $500 (she remembers me spending $600 for my C-64 a while back) computer? I smiled and said "Of course. It's an Amiga." ..Bob -- Bob Page, U of Lowell CS Dept. ulowell!page, page@ulowell.CSNET
grr@cbmvax.UUCP (03/05/87)
In article <2677@jade.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@violet.berkeley.edu(Mike Meyer) writes: > >1) That keyboard: YUCH! Got half the problems of the vt200/ISO (I >think it's an ISO standard, anyway) keyboard, without managing to >follow that standard. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it: >a keyboard that even people who like the vt200 keyboard would hate. You're making me feel bad... Perhaps some day you'll get to try to get more than one people to agree on what is a "good" layout... Anyway, the idea was to come up with a standard layout that we could use on both the A500 and A2000, in both US and International versions. We had an uncontrollable desire to "fix" the contra-ergonomic diamond shaped cursor arrangement and no need/desire for a compressed layout. Other concerns were having enough keys to emulate various popular terminals including providing a keypad suitible for use with DEC VMS (yeech) keypad editors. The actual design is really a combination of VT52 (my favorite), VT100, VT240 and C.Itoh 101e layouts and a lot of "where the hell do we put these !@#$%^&*() sqiggle and backslash keys". We also needed two optional postitions for "euro-keys" which get chipped out of the left-shit and return keys. In some ways result came out looking disturbingly like the ST keyboard, however we refrained from scrambling the "calculator" keys on the keypad just for the sake of being different... >Looks like the pencil-holder is gone, too. Oh, is that what that was for? > And it's not plug-compatable with the A1000 keyboard so I could keep using > that on one. Well, not plug compatible, but it is electrically compatible so if you really want to use your old keyboard, all you gotta do is go to Radio-shack and get the parts for a little adapter Also, remember that the whole works is reprogrammable through a keymap, so if you want to switch squiggle and escape or backspace and delete, there's nothing to stop you, and all well behaved software will obey your will. -- George Robbins - now working for, uucp: {ihnp4|seismo|rutgers}!cbmvax!grr but no way officially representing arpa: cbmvax!grr@seismo.css.GOV Commodore, Engineering Department fone: 215-431-9255 (only by moonlite)
charles@hpcvcd.HP (Charles Brown) (03/08/87)
>Well, not plug compatible, but it is electrically compatible so if you really >want to use your old keyboard, all you gotta do is go to Radio-shack and get >the parts for a little adapter Thank you. >Also, remember that the whole works is reprogrammable through a keymap, so >if you want to switch squiggle and escape or backspace and delete, there's >nothing to stop you, and all well behaved software will obey your will. Correct me if I am wrong... From reading the hardware reference manual, I got the impression that the CAPS key is treated differently. This makes it impossible to switch the CAPS key and the CNTL key. As Murphy's Law would have it, these are the ONLY keys I would like to switch. It seems my only option is to cut and jumper the traces inside the keyboard. Of course that will void my warranty. Is it possible to buy JUST the keyboard? That way I could get an acceptable layout and retain my warranty. Charles Brown hplabs!hp-pcd!charles
guilford@rpics.RPI.EDU (Jim Guilford) (03/09/87)
In article <4410004@hpcvcd.HP>, charles@hpcvcd.HP (Charles Brown) writes: > >if you want to switch squiggle and escape or backspace and delete, there's > >nothing to stop you, and all well behaved software will obey your will. > > Correct me if I am wrong... From reading the hardware reference > manual, I got the impression that the CAPS key is treated > differently. This makes it impossible to switch the CAPS key and the > CNTL key. As Murphy's Law would have it, these are the ONLY keys I > would like to switch. I may be wrong because I do not have the manuals in front of me and it has been quite a while since I have looked at this section, but it seems to me that even if the CNTL and SHFT keys were hard coded, that you could remap all of the control keys to look shifted and all of the shft keys to look controled (i.e. ^A = A and A = ^A). They only thing you would loose is that shift-lock would be a control-lock instead. JimG (guilford@csv.rpi.edu)
dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) (03/10/87)
Unfortunetly, if you process RAW keycodes yourself and do not use provided conversion routines (e.g. you assume keycode 0x10 means a specific key), no amount of keymapping will fix the problem. Therefore, I urge all of you using intuition's RAWKEY to pass it through RawKeyConvert() (or whatever the routine is), or get the default keymap from the console device. The latest version of DME does this partially, the next release will do it fully. Question to C-A: Is there a way of finding the raw keycode for the CAPSLOCK/SHIFT/CTRL/ALT keys? or can we assume they will never change? -Matt
keithd@cadovax.UUCP (03/11/87)
In article <4410004@hpcvcd.HP> charles@hpcvcd.HP (Charles Brown) writes: >Correct me if I am wrong... From reading the hardware reference >manual, I got the impression that the CAPS key is treated >differently. Speaking of the CAPS key, is it possible to configure a 'keymap' such that when you are in CAPS LOCK the shift key will cause alpha keys to generate LOWER CASE? The IBM PC and several terminals I've used support this feature, and I've found since using the Amiga that I use it fairly often (you notice how often when it dosen't work anymore). And while I'm at it, there's one other gripe I was hoping 1.2 would fix and didn't. I'll quite often be wandering through volumes of floppy disks looking for something, doing a 'cd df1:' followed quickly by a 'dir', and find that keystrokes in my 'dir' command are lost because the system has the 'no disk in DF1:' requester on screen, the system not yet realizing there IS a disk in the drive. I then have to wait for the message to go away before I can continue typing as obviously my input was redirected (in mid-type-stream no less) to the requester, which dosen't have a text-input gadget anyway. I realize this may imply a special case requester that dosen't steal away the input stream, but the way it is now really interferes with the wonderful 'type ahead' feature we've all grown to know and love. When requesters are popping up and 'stealing away' your typeahead, it makes for a somewhat confusing and usually useless interchange. Keith Doyle # {ucbvax,ihnp4,decvax}!trwrb!cadovax!keithd # cadovax!keithd@ucla-locus.arpa
andy@cbmvax.UUCP (Andy Finkel) (07/18/87)
In article <8703101922.AA10317@cory.Berkeley.EDU> dillon@CORY.BERKELEY.EDU (Matt Dillon) writes: > Question to C-A: Is there a way of finding the raw keycode >for the CAPSLOCK/SHIFT/CTRL/ALT keys? or can we assume they will never >change? If you are going directly to the scancodes, rather than reading the qualifier bits, you should assume they will never change. They probably won't. :-) andy -- andy finkel {ihnp4|seismo|allegra}!cbmvax!andy Commodore-Amiga, Inc. "The goal of Computer Science is to build something that will last at least until we've finished building it." Any expressed opinions are mine; but feel free to share. I disclaim all responsibilities, all shapes, all sizes, all colors.