Tek-Tips is the largest IT community on the Internet today!
Members share and learn making Tek-Tips Forums the best source of peer-reviewed technical information on the Internet!
-
Congratulations IamaSherpa on being selected by the Tek-Tips community for having the most helpful posts in the forums last week. Way to Go!
UK keyboard required
- Thread starter pebe
- Start date
I don't believe that Win98 will pass the keyboard settings to QB. As far as I know Win98 and WinME the DOS is only an application and not a direct environmental controler. You may want to try to add the keyboard driver in the config.sys (if there's one) or is it config.dos? It might be the dosstart.bat in your Windows' directory? I don't remember exactly where, but you could try all of these.
Hopefully these suggestions help.
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
Hopefully these suggestions help.
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
qbasicking
Programmer
when your first turn on your computer something like "Press Del to run Setup or DIAG" (after it does the memory check). You should run setup - this should change the keyboard settings. You should also check your configuration files.
Ok, I got out my MSDOS 5.0 book. On page 513, it indicates that you WILL need to use the "Keyb" command for the keyboard...
SYNTAX
keyb [xx[,[yyy][,[drive:][path]filename]]][/e][/id:nnn]
In you CONFIG.SYS file, use the follow syntax:
install=[[dos-drive:]dos-path]keyb.com[xx[,[yyy][,[drive:][path]filename]]][/e][/id:nnn]
PARAMETERS
xx Specifies the keyboard code.
yyy Specifies the code page.
[drive:][path]filename
Specifies the location and name of the keyboard definition file. The default filename is KEYBOARD.SYS.
[dos-drive:]dos-path
Specifies the location of the KEYB.COM file
[/e] Specifies that an enhanced keyboard is installed. use this switch if you are using an enhanced keyboard with an 8086 computer.
[/id:nnn] Specifies the keyboard in use. This switch is necessary only for countries that have more than one keyboard layout for the same language (France, Italy, and the United Kingdom).
Then the next page shows a table of valid values for xx, yy, and nnn for each country/language...
[tt]Country or Keyboard Code Code Page KeyBoard Id
Language (xx Value) (yyy Value) (nnn Value)
United Kingdom uk 850,437 166,168
[/tt]
On page 335 (Chapter 13--Customizing for International Use), it states
"To change the keyboard arrangement, you use a keyb command to start the Keyb program. This will only re-arrange the keyboard's keycodes; To change the MS-DOS country-specific conventions, you include a country command in your CONFIG.SYS file. This will conventionalize dates, currency, sort order used when alphabetizing files, and the characters used in filenames and directory names in that country's format."
You may want to look into that country command as well. (see my previous suggestion on where to place this/these commands) Also, you'll probably have to find an old MS-DOS installation diskette (ver 3.1, I believe, was the first one that I'd seen keyb in) to expand this/these files. But, again, there's no guarentee that WIN98 will accept those old KEYB/COUNTRY commands.
You'll most likely have to play around with WIN to make it work.
Good luck, pebe, I hope this has helped you.
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
SYNTAX
keyb [xx[,[yyy][,[drive:][path]filename]]][/e][/id:nnn]
In you CONFIG.SYS file, use the follow syntax:
install=[[dos-drive:]dos-path]keyb.com[xx[,[yyy][,[drive:][path]filename]]][/e][/id:nnn]
PARAMETERS
xx Specifies the keyboard code.
yyy Specifies the code page.
[drive:][path]filename
Specifies the location and name of the keyboard definition file. The default filename is KEYBOARD.SYS.
[dos-drive:]dos-path
Specifies the location of the KEYB.COM file
[/e] Specifies that an enhanced keyboard is installed. use this switch if you are using an enhanced keyboard with an 8086 computer.
[/id:nnn] Specifies the keyboard in use. This switch is necessary only for countries that have more than one keyboard layout for the same language (France, Italy, and the United Kingdom).
Then the next page shows a table of valid values for xx, yy, and nnn for each country/language...
[tt]Country or Keyboard Code Code Page KeyBoard Id
Language (xx Value) (yyy Value) (nnn Value)
United Kingdom uk 850,437 166,168
[/tt]
On page 335 (Chapter 13--Customizing for International Use), it states
"To change the keyboard arrangement, you use a keyb command to start the Keyb program. This will only re-arrange the keyboard's keycodes; To change the MS-DOS country-specific conventions, you include a country command in your CONFIG.SYS file. This will conventionalize dates, currency, sort order used when alphabetizing files, and the characters used in filenames and directory names in that country's format."
You may want to look into that country command as well. (see my previous suggestion on where to place this/these commands) Also, you'll probably have to find an old MS-DOS installation diskette (ver 3.1, I believe, was the first one that I'd seen keyb in) to expand this/these files. But, again, there's no guarentee that WIN98 will accept those old KEYB/COUNTRY commands.
You'll most likely have to play around with WIN to make it work.
Good luck, pebe, I hope this has helped you.
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
Sorry, I forget they changed this forum's parameters. The is a better view of the messed up section above:
Country or Language: United Kingdom
Keyboard Code (xx Value): uk <lower cased>
Code Page (yyy Value): 850,437
KeyBoard Id (nnn Value): 166,168
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
Country or Language: United Kingdom
Keyboard Code (xx Value): uk <lower cased>
Code Page (yyy Value): 850,437
KeyBoard Id (nnn Value): 166,168
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
- Thread starter
- #6
I think my problem started when I lost my HD due to a bug, and had to reinstall Windows. In error I loaded it with the default US keyboard. I later tried to correct it with Windows keyboard Setup but although it corrected Windows, it did not correct the Dos part.
qbasicking:
I tried running setup after the memory check as you suggested but that only took me into the Bios setup and there was no mention there of keyboards.
MiggyD:
I knew the format using Dos 6.22 and your comments prompted me to do a search for the equivalent Dos files. I had already looked in Windows Explorer, but didn't find them. Many files there are without extensions and the two .SYS files I wanted were not shown there at all!
It seems that the old DOS folder has been replaced in Windows98se with the Command folder. Once I knew where the files were, I changed Config.sys and Autoexec.bat.
Config.sys (previously empty) was changed to:
COUNTRY=044,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\COUNTRY.SYS
and Autoexec.bat (which previously only contained 'PATH')was changed to:
KEYB UK,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\KEYBOARD.SYS
QuickBasic now shows #, " and £ correctly.
As a last resort I was going to reinstall Windows but that has not now been necessary. Thanks to both of you for your help.
qbasicking:
I tried running setup after the memory check as you suggested but that only took me into the Bios setup and there was no mention there of keyboards.
MiggyD:
I knew the format using Dos 6.22 and your comments prompted me to do a search for the equivalent Dos files. I had already looked in Windows Explorer, but didn't find them. Many files there are without extensions and the two .SYS files I wanted were not shown there at all!
It seems that the old DOS folder has been replaced in Windows98se with the Command folder. Once I knew where the files were, I changed Config.sys and Autoexec.bat.
Config.sys (previously empty) was changed to:
COUNTRY=044,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\COUNTRY.SYS
and Autoexec.bat (which previously only contained 'PATH')was changed to:
KEYB UK,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\KEYBOARD.SYS
QuickBasic now shows #, " and £ correctly.
As a last resort I was going to reinstall Windows but that has not now been necessary. Thanks to both of you for your help.
Re-install Windows, Ooh Noo! X-) Yeah, I remember THOSE YEARS. LOL
Get it, YEARS? Not HOURLY, not DAYS, not NIGHTS, not WEEKS, not BIMONTHLY, not MONTHS, not BIANNUAL, etc....just YEARS.
I'm glad to be out of them; and I'm glad I was able to help, see ya 'round.
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
Get it, YEARS? Not HOURLY, not DAYS, not NIGHTS, not WEEKS, not BIMONTHLY, not MONTHS, not BIANNUAL, etc....just YEARS.
I'm glad to be out of them; and I'm glad I was able to help, see ya 'round.
--MiggyD It's better to have two heads to solve a problem from different angles than to have tunnel vision to a dead end.
- Status