Grant [Waxing Robotic]Hutchinson (grant@splorp.com) wrote:
> I know that there is generic keyboard recognition software written for
> the Palm OS in order it to know when a Newton keyboard is attached, but
> is this really necessary for the Newton? The Newton keyboard wasn't
> released after the original couple of versions of the MessagePad, and it
> just plugs and plays. Is keyboard support in a MessagePad relying on code
> embedded in a certain version of the Newt OS?
Grant,
as Gopi explained, the Newton keyboard sends data whenever a key is
depressed or released, according to some proprietary protocol (this is
more or less how any keyboard communicates with a computer). Some part of
the OS then determines which key is depressed at any given time, and
eventually translates this info into a sequence of characters. This part
of the Newton OS was only introduced with NOS 2.0, though older Newtons
can use a keyboard when a driver is installed -- like NewtKey, which Gopi
mentioned. The Palm OS does something similar when a Stowaway keyboard is
attached to a Palm, only the keyboard protocol will most likely be
different, so in order to make this work with a Newton, you would need to
write your own driver.
Michael J. Hussmann
Redaktion macmagazin
Leverkusenstrasse 54 VII
D-22761 Hamburg
Germany
E-mail: michael@macmagazin.de
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Tue Aug 01 2000 - 06:50:09 CDT