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Mess really SUCKS


Romko343

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Don't misunderstand, mainbyte's version does look better, so your link is really appreciated. The problem with it is just that it does not show the complete keyboard layout, so it is most useful for people with a US keyboard layout. And Ralf supposedly has a DE keyboard.

 

It's not only the Z/Y swap; the top row with Shift is !"§$%&/()=?, so this is some particular fun when you want to type in the parentheses which are shifted by one key. :)

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(if you asked me, Tursi)

 

I have tried this now with the backslash \ , as it sits on the US-keyboard on the Z,

(a good choice for testing that, as Z and Y are swapped on German keyboards)

 

On my germany keyboard, I have to press ALT-GR-Y to get the \

so it seems to follow the keys on the keyboard by position, not the letter printed on

if you mean that.

 

Ralf

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I'm not too familiar with the details of the MAME input subsystem, but AFAIK it takes the raw keycodes from the keyboard. Accordingly, there is no mapping to locales. The point is that by this way, all keys from the keyboard can be individually mapped, including the modifiers (Shift, Ctrl, Alt, AltGr, Meta, ...).

 

However, this also means that the labels on the keys do not match the keystroke that is received. The actual adaptation to the locale is done by the operating system.

 

This is the difference to the natural mode in MESS: In the natural mode, the operating system in between maps the keycodes to the characters according to the locale. Then, this character is fed into the MAME input system. As I said, the problem here is that you depend on the operating system to really map the keycodes. Not all key combinations are actually mapped, and hence they are not propagated to the MAME input system.

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Ignoring natural mode... I'm just curious what happened in the straight mapping. It sounds a bit confusing.

 

And.. I guess it's really just point of interest for me, I had trouble with the internationalization API. ;)

 

So Y and Z are reversed compared to a US (and thus the TI) keyboard. I assume when you press 'Y' you get a 'Y', and when you press a 'Z' you get a 'Z'. So it seems strange that the FCTN versions of those keys are swapped (ie: when NOT pressing ALT-GR, you get the key on the face, and not the TI position key, but when you ARE pressing ALT-GR, you get the TI position key and not the FCTN'd face key.)

 

Is that correct? Once I understand it I may take a peek at the code just to see if I can satisfy my curiosity. :)

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No, they are always swapped, not only for AltGr. That is, the keycode of the keyboard switch row 4, column 3 is transmitted to the core, and MAME always makes a Z from it, not the Y that I thought I had typed.

 

CALL KEZ*0,K,S( , you know what I mean? :)

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Y and Z are generally swapped on PC-Keybord, comparing US and German.

But my real-iron TI´s is US-style, no matter if it is PAL or NTSC (EU or US)

(I have never seen a TI with german keyboard = Y and Z swapped in contrat to US)

 

confirmed, If I press Y in the Mess, I get a Z on the screen

and I have to press ALT-GR-Y to get the backslash \

so that is stringent, no swapping against swapping or so, as you suspected

 

want so say, Y and Z are swapped in all cases, not only with function-key-combination

 

 

/EDIT/ I ment "as Tursi suspected" (I was to late with my post here, MiZapf was a second faster :)

Edited by schmitzi
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The only localized versions of a TI keyboard were sold in Argentina. Some of their keyboards had the "N" with a Tilde added to it in place of the Semicolon/Colon key: see picture #5 on this page. On side note that I just found out reading that page: the TI apparently continued to be manufactured in Argentina until 1986. . .long after production stopped everywhere else. The localized keyboards exist in both Black and Cream consoles. I have one of the Black ones.

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The only localized versions of a TI keyboard were sold in Argentina. Some of their keyboards had the "N" with a Tilde added to it in place of the Semicolon/Colon key: see picture #5 on this page. On side note that I just found out reading that page: the TI apparently continued to be manufactured in Argentina until 1986. . .long after production stopped everywhere else. The localized keyboards exist in both Black and Cream consoles. I have one of the Black ones.

 

Interesting to see "© 1982" on the master title screen.

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Ah, okay, that's not so confusing then. (And it means that the map I posted should be correct as well.. the face letter may be wrong but the position and the Alt character is correct?)

 

Sure, and as I said the layout you posted is clearer, but to achieve that, it omits some keys that are on other locations for people with a QWERTZ keyboard layout. Maybe we can craft a joint layout? :)

post-35000-0-75147400-1429005349_thumb.png

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It's not my picture, I was just trying to help. It has the same keys in the same position as both the drawing and the photo of the real keyboard, it just omits the ones without a FCTN alternate. ;) Thus when you said it was not as useful as the real TI keyboard image, I wanted to understand that.

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