chaim@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Dr. Chaim Dworkin) (09/15/90)
A long time ago I purchased one of the early 286 AT clones. In the
intervening time I installed a high density 3.5" drive and at that time
I had to upgrade the BIOS. When I bought the BIOS (Phoenix ver 3.07)
the manufacturer told me that the new BIOS supports the enhanced keyboard
if I ever wanted to get one.
Now my old keyboard died and I went out and purchased a new one. The
new one is an enhanced keyboard (has 12 function keys and separate inverted
T cursor keys). The new keyboard seems to work fine in everything I do
except when I run MS Windows 3.0 where I get lots of keyboard errors. For
example in Ami Pro, my wordprocessor, the inverted T cursor keys give me
numbers on the screen instead of moving the cursor and the extra keys
labeled HOME, END, PgUp, PgDn, Ins, Del don't work. However all those keys
work just fine when I used the keypad. Also sometimes no matter what I do
all I get are shifted keys. These problems didn't exist with the old keyboard.
I tried a diagnostic program which shows the keyboard working just fine.
I can't tell if the keyboard is the problem or Windows. I also wonder if
changing the BIOS isn't sufficient to upgrade the old AT keyboard to an
enhanced keyboard. What about the keyboard decoder chip? Would that need
to be upgraded also? If so, can anyone suggest where I can buy a new
keyboard decoder chip? Luckily mine is socketed. Would it help if I
reinstalled Windows? Does Windows have a line in one of its .ini files
specifying type of keyboard?
Thanks for your help.
--
Chaim Dworkin (chaim@eniac.seas.upenn.edu)jcmorris@mwunix.mitre.org (Joe Morris) (09/15/90)
In a recent article chaim@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Dr. Chaim Dworkin) writes: > When I bought the BIOS (Phoenix ver 3.07) >the manufacturer told me that the new BIOS supports the enhanced keyboard >if I ever wanted to get one. > For >example in Ami Pro, my wordprocessor, the inverted T cursor keys give me >numbers on the screen instead of moving the cursor and the extra keys >labeled HOME, END, PgUp, PgDn, Ins, Del don't work. However all those keys >work just fine when I used the keypad. Also sometimes no matter what I do >all I get are shifted keys. These problems didn't exist with the old keyboard. I have the same problem with a true-blue IBM AT; the problem is that its BIOS never heard of the 101-key keyboard and hasn't the faintest idea what to do with the scancode sequences it is receiving. Common symptoms are the inverted- T cursor keys generating the digits from the corresponding keys on the numeric keypad. Also, the right-side ALT and CTRL keys are locking: hit the right CTRL key and some alpha characters produces the control-char string as output; hit and release the *left* CTRL key and you're back to normal. Other interesting problems can and do appear. I fixed "most" of the problems by putting a call to the 'fixshift' program in AUTOEXEC.BAT. (The program came with Microsoft C 5.1 and if I recall was required for certain clones.) There are still problems, but I've found that if I have a keyboard-sensitive program which works on my mongrel AT then users aren't likely to have problems on a properly configured machine. The old keyboards always sent one scan code when any key was pressed (maybe repeating it if the key is held down), and sent the same scan code plus hex 80 when the key was released. For a variety of reasons (primarily to preserve upward compatibility for programs which look at scan codes) the 101-key keyboards send the scan codes of the keys which *would have been pressed* on the old keyboard to provide the same function. For example, if you're not in NumLock mode and hit the new uparrow key the keyboard sends scan codes for left shift down (to invert the NumLock logic), keypad 8 (shared with uparrow) down, keypad 8 up, and left shift up. The fun comes because the keyboard also sends a scan code of hex e0 to identify the true key which you pressed. Many of the old BIOS routines don't do bounds checks in their scan code lookup routines and get very confused. Anyway, it sounds like your BIOS is unable to handle the new keyboard. Go back to the vendor and conduct some primal scream therapy at whoever sold you the upgrade. Good luck...
marshall@wind55.seri.gov (Marshall L. Buhl) (09/17/90)
chaim@eniac.seas.upenn.edu (Dr. Chaim Dworkin) writes: > Now my old keyboard died and I went out and purchased a new one. The >new one is an enhanced keyboard (has 12 function keys and separate inverted >T cursor keys). The new keyboard seems to work fine in everything I do >except when I run MS Windows 3.0 where I get lots of keyboard errors. For >example in Ami Pro, my wordprocessor, the inverted T cursor keys give me >numbers on the screen instead of moving the cursor and the extra keys >labeled HOME, END, PgUp, PgDn, Ins, Del don't work. However all those keys >work just fine when I used the keypad. Also sometimes no matter what I do >all I get are shifted keys. These problems didn't exist with the old keyboard. > Would it help if I >reinstalled Windows? Does Windows have a line in one of its .ini files >specifying type of keyboard? You must run Windows Setup from the Main Group and tell it that you are now using an enhanced keyboard. Not doing so causes the symptoms you describe. >Thanks for your help. You're welcome. -- Marshall L. Buhl, Jr. EMAIL: marshall@seri.gov Senior Computer Missionary VOICE: (303)231-1014 Wind Research Branch 1617 Cole Blvd., Golden, CO 80401-3393 Solar Energy Research Institute Solar - safe energy for a healthy future
hcliff@wybbs.mi.org (Cliff Helsel) (09/19/90)
Something else that might be interferring with Windows operation is the version of the ROM system and keyboard BIOS. I had problems with Windows and my diskdrives because I had an outdated Award BIOS (a couple version numbers mean a lot). Cliff Helsel hcliff@wybbs.mi.org hcliff@wybbs.UUCP