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KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 Copyright (C) 1985, 1986 Skip Gilbrech ---------------------------------------------- This program is intended for public-domain use It must not be sold under any condition ---------------------------------------------- INTRODUCTION KBFIX2.COM is a resident program for the IBM PC, AT, and compatibles which contains several keyboard enhancements which I and many others have found extremely useful. Most of these enhancements can be found in one or another public-domain or commercial program, but they tend to be grouped together with other features which you may or may not want, and which often can't be shut off. KBFIX2 was written to be as compatible as possible with other programs, and as flexible as possible in terms of options: all its features can be enabled or disabled at any time from the dos command line. Version 3.0 contains several enhancements and bug fixes to the last released version (2.3). Many of the changes were suggested by users of the program. I apologize for not replying personally to each suggestion, but everyone who wrote me, and whose address I can find, will receive a copy of this update. Changes which affect command line parameters or program use are marked in the left margin with '|'. See the end of this document for a change summary. USING THE PROGRAM KBFIX2 can be invoked from the command line or from within a batch file. The first time the program is invoked it loads itself into memory (takes up about 2-1/2 K); it will then remain resident until the system is rebooted, or until it is removed from memory with the /K option. The current configuration of KBFIX2 is selected by means of the command line options outlined below, any or all of which can be changed at any time. When the program starts up, it tries to find its loaded image in memory; if the image is found, all options currently in effect are copied to a local buffer where they are used as defaults, and all changes will be made to the memory-resident image. KBFIX2 will never knowingly load more than one copy of itself into memory, so if you ever see the 'Initial Installation' message after KBFIX2 has once been loaded, please reboot and let me know about it. -- 1 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 Options can be entered separately or in groups. Each option or group must be preceded by '-' or '/', and must be separated from other groups by at least one space or tab. There must be no spaces within groups. To enable or disable an 'on/off' option, follow the letter(s) with 1 or 0. OPTION DEFAULT ------ ------- KB -- use extended Keyboard Buffer Enabled Enabling this option activates the 127-character keyboard buffer. It also allows KBFIX2 to check for the special characters Ctrl-C, Ctrl-S, and Ctrl-P, which are normally only recognized by DOS if they appear at the beginning of the keyboard buffer. If any one of these characters is typed while KBFIX2's buffer is active, the buffer will be cleared, and the character typed will be placed at its head. KT -- adjust Typematic action of Keys Disabled Enabling this option allows adjusting the speed of typematic key repeating; disabling it returns typematic action to normal. The options below that start with 'KT' will retain their settings even if typematic is disabled, so it's not necessary to reenter them if it becomes necessary to shut off typematic temporarily. KTD -- Ticks to Delay before starting (0-99) 6 Sets the number of timer ticks which will occur before typematic repeating begins. Timer ticks happen approximately once every 1/18th second, so if this number is larger than about 9, the only effect it will have is a speedup of the typematic rate of an already repeating key, since normal typematic action seems to start (on an IBM-PC, at least) about one-half second after the key is first pressed. Personally I find a setting of 5 or 6 about right. KTR -- Ticks between key Repeats (0-99) 0 Sets the number of timer ticks which will occur between repeats of the currently-pressed key. Setting this option to zero results in 18 repeats per second. These repeats are in addition to the normal typematic repeats produced by the keyboard, so the effective rate of repeating will be considerably higher than the setting of this option would otherwise indicate. -- 2 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 OPTION DEFAULT ------ ------- KTN -- Num. chars. inserted each repeat (1-10) 1 Determines how many copies of the currently repeating keycode to place into the keyboard buffer each time the key is repeated. Fine tuning of the effective typematic rate is possible by experimenting with various combinations of this setting and the KTR setting above. F -- Fix caps-lock reverse character shift Always Tells KBFIX2 whether or not to fix the annoying 'reverse-shift' which occurs when caps-lock is on and a shift key is pressed. When I have caps-lock on, it's generally because I want capital letters to appear on the screen, and that's what will happen when this option is enabled. | This option has changed in Version 3.0. The default setting | (nothing entered on the command line) will act as before, but | following the 'F' with '1' causes caps-lock to act more like | caps-lock on a typewriter: The first time a shift key is pressed | along with any alphabetic character when caps-lock is on, the | alphabetic character will be capitalized. Caps-lock will then be | turned off. This feature is easier to try than to describe, and | if you don't like it, either enter nothing for this option or | follow the 'F' with '2', and the reverse-shift-fix will act as it | always has. -- 3 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 OPTION DEFAULT ------ ------- D -- Display state of locking keys Enabled Enabling this option results in an on-screen display of the state of the caps-lock, num-lock, and scroll-lock toggles. | This display has changed somewhat in Version 3.0: The lock flags | are now shown by printing the appropriate character (C, N, or S) | with an attribute constructed by reversing the foreground and | background attributes of whatever is currently displayed on the | screen. In addition, the current character is saved and replaced | if possible when the locking key is toggled off. Previously, a | blanking character was always inserted when a key was not | toggled; now, the screen is not disturbed at all. These changes | result in less disturbance to screen displays, particularly if | color is being used, and reduce the system overhead slightly if | the timer update option is in effect. It is possible for the | algorithm used to become confused under certain circumstances, | but the condition will generally correct itself when the screen | is changed in a different program, etc. Display of locking flags | is now disabled during graphics mode operations. C -- starting Column for display (0-77) 77 Sets the starting screen column for the 3-character flag display. R -- Row for display (0-24) 0 Sets the row for the flag display. If the row setting is other than 0, the flags will 'clone' themselves whenever the screen is scrolled. | W -- Wait for Retrace on color display Enabled | Disable this option if you have a color card (EGA, etc.) that | doesn't produce 'snow' on the monitor. Those using a standard | IBM color graphics board should leave the option enabled. -- 4 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 OPTION DEFAULT ------ ------- T -- use Timer interrupt to update display Disabled Enabling this option tells KBFIX2 to update the flag display 18 times per second by using the timer interrupt; disabling it means the flags will only be updated whenever a key is pressed. Use of this feature allows the flags to be seen in programs which would otherwise overwrite them between key presses, but it also slows down the entire system slightly due to the overhead involved in writing to the screen. The slow-down seems to be less than one percent, though, even when using a color monitor. This option has no effect unless the D option above is also enabled. B -- Beep when locking keys are toggled Enabled Determines whether the bell will sound whenever the state of one of the toggling keys changes. If this option is enabled, the machine will beep from low to high whenever a toggle changes from off to on, and from high to low whenever a toggle changes from on to off. | In Version 3.0, you can follow the 'B' with a ratio (n:n) to | control the pitch of the beeps. This is useful when running | KBFIX2 on faster machines like the AT, etc. Entering B2:3, for | example, results in a pitch which is 2/3 of normal, which should | sound about right on an AT. Numbers from 1 to 9 can be used; if | the second value is missing, it is assumed to be '1'. S -- Scroll lock pause control Disabled Enabling this option will make KBFIX2 enter a loop whenever the scroll-lock key is pressed. The loop will cause screen output, and any other non interrupt-driven activity, to pause until the next time scroll-lock is pressed (either by itself, or at the same time as shift key). The scroll-lock key can always be used normally (to shift the scroll-state) by holding a shift key (Right/Left Shift or Alt) down at the same time. If the D option is enabled, a blinking S will be displayed while the pause is in effect. | In Version 3.0, the blinking 'S' is displayed to the left of the | other lock flags to avoid confusion with the normal scroll-lock | flag. -- 5 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 OPTION DEFAULT ------ ------- V -- Verbose display of current settings Enabled Disabling this option prevents KBFIX2 from presenting its normal display of current settings. To have any effect, this option must be specified each time KBFIX2 is invoked. | K -- Kill KBFIX2 (remove from memory) | Entering /K on the command line causes KBFIX2 to remove itself | from memory if possible. This command should be used carefully | since it can result in memory 'holes' if KBFIX2 isn't the last | resident program installed. If KBFIX2's interrupt vectors have | been modified by another program, this command will fail, since | removing the program from memory in such a situation is almost | certain to lead to a system crash. ----------------------------------------------------------- Command Line Example: KBFIX2 /F0 /KT1 /KTD5 /D1 /T1 /C50 /R0 /B0 /V0 disables the caps-lock fix, enables typematic adjustment, sets the typematic delay (before starting to repeat a pressed key) to 5 ticks (5/18ths of a second), enables the key-state display and timer update, sets the display column and row to 50/0, disables toggle beeps, and tells KBFIX2 not to display its current settings. To avoid having to remember all this, enter your normal para- meters in AUTOEXEC.BAT or in some other convenient batch file. -- 6 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 HARDWARE COMPATIBILITY KBFIX2 should run on any IBM-PC, XT, or AT, and on most close compatibles. Following are some of the assumptions it makes about the hardware: 1) The screen memory starts at B000H (monochrome), and B800H (color); screen-related bios data locations are identical to those on the IBM-PC. 2) The keyboard buffer starts at 40:1E and is organized like the standard IBM-PC buffer. 3) The base port address of the 8259 interrupt controller is 20H; the timer interrupt is on IRQ0, set up as interrupt 8; the keyboard interrupt is on IRQ1 and is interrupt 9. 4) The base keyboard port address is 60H. -- 7 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 SOFTWARE COMPATIBILITY No program that deals with the hardware and system software on this level can hope to be compatible with everything else. KBFIX2 appears to work perfectly well with Sidekick, Dosedit, Prokey, Util (which places characters directly in the buffer), and every other program I've tried so far. It also works well with Fansi-Console (replacement for Ansi.sys) if KBFIX2's buffer option is disabled, since Fansi provides its own enlarged keyboard buffer. I can offer, however, absolutely no guarantees. I would like to be informed, though, at the address below, of any incompatibil- ities found, so I can try to determine whether the incompatibil- ity results from a problem within KBFIX2. Before you decide that KBFIX2 is incompatible with something, by the way, try varying loading order, removing other resident programs, changing op- tions, etc. I've tried to give KBFIX2 as 'low a profile' as possible. What I mean by that is that the interrupt handlers in KBFIX2 always pass control to whatever was there before, without changing the machine state at all. That feature is useful, though, only when KBFIX2 is loaded last in the chain of interrupt handlers. KBFIX2 constantly checks the keyboard buffer to deter- mine whether another program has changed it, and if so, it defers to that program, resets its own buffer and variables, and uses the current buffer condition as a starting point for further processing. KBFIX2 cannot, however, control what other programs do. -- 8 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 CHANGES | V3.0 (05/31/86): Fixed bug which caused repeated beeping when a | key state was toggled by another program (i.e., not from the | keyboard). | Moved keyboard buffer to occupy the PSP after 5CH to save some | memory. | Changed '/b' parameter to take an optional ratio to vary the | pitch & duration of all beeps for faster machines (AT, etc.) | Ratio is expressed as /bn:n where 1:2 makes things half as fast, | 3:4 makes them 3/4 as fast, etc. | Exit code returned to system if dos 2.0 or above. | Option ('/k') to remove program from memory if vectors haven't | been modified. | V2.9 (05/13/86): Changed key state display to reverse colors it | finds on the screen when showing a locked state, and to update | the screen only when necessary. Also added check for graphic | mode -- key state display is now disabled in this mode. | V2.8 (04/26/86): Modified timer handler to use hardware timer | interrupt and do its work after calling the 'real' handler. | Since an EOI will have been sent to the 8259 at this point, it's | no longer necessary to set special mask mode to enable lower | priority interrupts, which should solve some reported | compatibility problems with Tallgrass hard disks. | V2.7 (03/06/86): Added option (/W0) to disable wait-for-retrace | on color display. Fixed Ctrl-Break problem causing slow | typematic until buffer had wrapped. | V2.6 (02/11/86): Added option (/F2) to turn off caps-lock the | first time an alpha key is pressed along with a shift key. | V2.5 (02/06/86): Fix AT reverse caps-lock shift problem. | V2.4 (08/13/85): Tied beep to timer handler -- if both enabled, | beep will sound whenever locking key status changes, even if | change not done through keyboard. **** LAST RELEASED VERSION **** V2.3 (6/18/85): Fixed bug which resulted in the scroll-lock key behaving like a typematic key. -- 9 -- KBFIX2.COM VERSION 3.0 June 22, 1986 V2.2 (3/31/85): Fixed bug in buffer logic which put the wrong character in the bios keyboard buffer when the extended buffer option was in effect, and characters were being typed slightly faster than they were removed from the buffer (thanks to Dave Rothman and Chris Dunford for reporting this). Changed format of current options display to be consistent with actual setting of command-line switches (thanks to Earle Robinson for the suggestion). Changed scroll-lock pause to release only when the scroll-lock key is pressed again. If the status display is active, a blinking S will display while the pause is in effect. V2.1 (3/18/85): Added scroll-lock pause feature ('s' option). V2.0 (3/16/85): Original version. Please direct all questions, suggestions and problem reports to: Skip Gilbrech 90 Lexington Ave. #10-G New York, NY 10016 Compuserve: 71445,534 (messages left on IBMSW SIG preferred) This program is in the public domain. Anyone is welcome to use it and pass it along as they like. Contributions are definitely NOT solicited, but then again, I'm not about to return checks from grateful users... -- 10 --