Re: [hatari-devel] Keypad / Numlock handling

[Thomas Huth <th.huth@xxxxxxxxx>]

Am Thu, 14 Oct 2021 22:41:14 +0300
schrieb Eero Tamminen <oak@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx>:

> Hi Thomas,
> 
> On 14.10.2021 22.12, Eero Tamminen wrote:
> > I'm wondering about your oldish patch to keypad code:
> > https://git.tuxfamily.org/hatari/hatari.git/commit/?id=f07bc3ad4f25a908dcff41e1090aaa11f7d6d40e 
> > 
> > I do not understand why you removed support for
> > KP0 instead of fixing the "if" check.  On my
> > keyboard, in addition to 1-9, numlock affects
> > also keypad '0' and ',' key...  
> 
> ',' is on other Keypads '.'.
> 
> (my keyboard is Scandinavian one)
> 
> > What's the reasoning?  
> 
> I mean, if the purpose was just to check for
> keys that matter, also KP1 should have been
> removed, and comment about that added to "if".
> 
> 
> Another thing is that Hatari code maps:
> - 7: Insert
> - 9: Home
> 
> Whereas my keyboard keypad buttons themselves
> tell them to represent:
> - 7: Home
> - 9: Page up [1]
> - 1: End
> - 3: Page down [1]
> - 0: Insert
> - .: Delete
> 
> Wouldn't it make more sense to map them to these,
> or are there numlock equipped keypads with other
> annotations?

As you already have discovered, the numlock cursor mode in Hatari is
quite different compared to the normal PC-style numlock cursor mode.
The reason is simple: There is no numlock mode on normal Atari STs, so
there was also no need to mimick the PC-style mode. But: There are some
programs and games like Dungeon Master that are only really well
playable with the original Atari key layout where Insert and Clr-Home
keys are close to the cursor keys. Since a lot of modern keyboards have
those keys in different locations, playing Dungeon Master is no fun at
all - unless you use this special Numlock keyboard mode.

But agreed, this definitely needs to be documented more (the original
code has been introduced in 2003 in commit2d9ddb072 already, before
we had the manual in the repo). So I'll add some words to the manual
for clarification now.

 Thomas