gt1174a@prism.gatech.EDU (Horkan Smith) (10/25/90)
For all of you keyboard speed freaks out there, I've finally gotten around
to patching the keyboard driver.
On AT & 101/2 type keyboards, the auto-repeat rate and *delay before
repeating* are both fairly easy to change. You just need to send the
keyboard controller a 0xf3, followed by the new rate. Windows allows
you to set the repeat rate in the control panel, but defaults the delay
before repeat to 1/2 sec. (same as the power-up default).
Having grown accustomed to maniacal repeat rates, this was annoying.
So, I figured out how to patch the keyboard driver.
If you're not interested, press 'n' now.
First, quit windows. Windows won't let you fool w/ a driver file while
it's running. Now
MAKE A BACKUP COPY OF YOUR KEYBOARD DRIVER !!! PLEASE !!!!
C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM> debug keyboard.drv
-s 100 l 2000 80 F3 FA
debug should come back w/ a list of places (hopefully only one) where
it found that string. In mine, it was only at 078D.
-u 78d ; or whatever your search turned up
23FA:078D B0F3 MOV AL,F3
23FA:078F FA CLI
23FA:0790 E82300 CALL 07B6
23FA:0793 E30E JCXZ 07A3
23FA:0795 8D1E0000 LEA BX,[0000]
23FA:0799 03DA ADD BX,DX
23FA:079B 2E CS:
23FA:079C 8A07 MOV AL,[BX]
23FA:079E 0C20 OR AL,20 <<--- this is the culprit!
23FA:07A0 E81300 CALL 07B6
23FA:07A3 FB STI
23FA:07A4 E304 JCXZ 07AA
Notice the OR AL,20 at 079E? Just NOP that instruction out, and you've
got it. For those who have no idea what a NOP is, try the following:
-e 079e 90 90 ; using the address for your OR statement if it's different.
Okay, that's it, let's save it.
-w
-q
Now then, start up windows and give it a try!
Note: This just changes the delay - the repeat rate still gets controlled
by the Control Panel.
From what I can tell of the code, this same stuff should be in almost all
of the keyboard drivers, but there's no telling where. It's been tested
only on a AMI Bios 386 w/ an 84 key (old AT style) keyboard.
Good luck!
--
G. Horkan Smith
Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta Georgia, 30332
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