Re: [9fans] azerty [french] keyboard support

[Dan Cross <cross@math.psu.edu>]

In article <018901c08f5f$276e9ec0$0ab9c6d4@cybercable.fr> you write:
>> (Yeah, I'm ignoring the fact that in said Paris Internet
>> Cafe, you were probably using an OS that expected a French
>> keyboard....)
>
>no.  the scan codes from pc keyboards do not change, just
>the keytops.  then, the translation is done in s/w.  you
>only really need a french keyboard if you want to type
>latin-1, a superset of ascii.

Oh, okay.  Then I'll repeat my question to Rob, ``what, you didn't
have your happy hacking keyboard with you?''  :-)

I remember using a computer in Israel one time.  My friend's father
asked me, ``can you take a look at my old computer?  I want to fix
it up and give it to my daughter....''  ``Uhh, I don't really do
Windows, so, I don't know if I'd be much help....''  ``Of course you
would!  Here, have a look.''

Well, the keyboard had mixed English/Hebrew keycaps, which threw me
off whenever I looked at it.  Luckily, I touch-type most of the time,
so it wasn't that big of a deal.  Windows 95 was the Israeli edition,
so all of the text, including dialogue boxes, was in Hebrew.  I can't
read Hebrew.  I had to have people read the contents of every text
window on the system and translate into English before I could do
anything....  It was disconcerting.

>i always liked the 5620 keyboard.  the sony vaio's
>is pretty close to that (well my 505's is); touch,
>key size and shape.

There's got to be a better way to handle keyboards than all this
magic in the kernel....

	- Dan C.