[Gambas-user] Key code constant wrong?

[nando]

Thank you for the nostalgia.
I had an 8800b - lots of fun.
and I do remember the black ones were NC.

Early in the PC days, there was no keypad.
I remember explicitly when the keypad came into use,
the keypad ENTER was a different code.
Caused me a headache, but allowed for using the keypad differently too.
Good and bad.

-Fernando


---------- Original Message -----------
From: Randall Morgan <rmorgan62 at ...626...>
To: mailing list for gambas users <gambas-user at lists.sourceforge.net>
Sent: Sun, 10 Nov 2013 20:01:31 -0800
Subject: Re: [Gambas-user] Key code constant wrong?

> This is an interesting thread.... If you look back at some of the early
> keyboards you will see that they did name the two keys differently. And
> this was a hold over from the use of Qwerty keyboards on teletypes and
> typewriters. The key on the text (main) keyboard is the return key. On
> teletypes the key causes the carriage to return to the beginning of the
> line. While the Enter key on the ten-key (numerical) keypad was taken from
> the mechanical adding machines of the day. The enter key caused the
> numerical value that was punch into numerical keys to be entered into the
> calculation.
> 
> With the move away from these mechanical devices most people (except us old
> timers) have never seen or used a mechanical ten-key or Underwood
> typewriter. The effect of the two keys on computer systems today is pretty
> much the same. However I believe they remain separate for two reasons.
> First, the need to maintain compatibility with any software that does use
> them differently and second because the keys are laid out in a matrix
> fashion that causes each key to have a distinct value. But it would not
> surprise me if someday the keys are merged.
> 
> Hope that shines some light on where the difference came from. My first PC
> was an Altair 8800 without a keyboard. Mice hadn't been invented and
> remember joy and sense of accomplishment we felt when my father and I got
> the 88 to draw a circle on the oscilloscope. My first key pad was radio
> shack's little red (the black ones were n.c. and the red n.o.) all tide
> together on a piece of paneling. All buffered with 7404 hex inverters and
> sent to a custom board plugged into the 88's back plane. Those were the
> days when you build what you programmed. A lot of fun and a lot of work! I
> sure wish I still had that old 88. It would be worth something now but it
> was lost in a fire.
> 
> Ok, I'm done with the nostalgia thanks for letting me share. Hope I shed a
> bit of light on the key issue.
> 
> On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 5:10 PM, Dimitris Anogiatis <dosida at ...626...>wrote:
> 
> > Perhaps its a remnand from the typewriter days...where the separation
> > between line feed and carriage return was more visible due to its
> > mechanical nature.
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sun, Nov 10, 2013 at 2:10 AM, Benoît Minisini <
> > gambas at ...1...> wrote:
> >
> > > Le 10/11/2013 06:05, Alain Baudrez a écrit :
> > > >
> > > > Why is Enter printed on that key on my laptop ??
> > > >
> > > > I would never have guessed to refer to Key.Return instead of key.Enter.
> > > >
> > > > Alain
> > >
> > > Good question: both are named "Enter" (in french) on my keyboard too,
> > > but they have always been two different keys internally.
> > >
> > > You must assume that two physicals different keys should always have
> > > different Key.Code values (even if this is not always the case!).
> > >
> > > --
> > > Benoît Minisini
> > >
> > >
> > >
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------- End of Original Message -------