Happy Hacking enter key

[Patrick Machielse]

Just bought myself a Happy Hacking Lite2 USB keyboard on ebay

<http://www.pfu.co.jp/en/hhkeyboard/leaflet/photo.html#hhklite2>

It works just fine and is nice and compact. However, there seems to be
one catch for Mac users: I doesn't come with an 'enter' key, just a
mis-labeled return key. On a Mac that's just not the same thing :-(

Any Happy Hacking users in the room that did find the return key, or
that have a usable work around? Otherwise it seems I'll have to write a
custom keyboar driver for it and reassign the right option key...

patrick

[David Phillip Oster]

In article <1grm9sg.1vw05w6ynofnsN%nor...@mail.invalid>,
nor...@mail.invalid (Patrick Machielse) wrote:

> Just bought myself a Happy Hacking Lite2 USB keyboard on ebay
>
> <http://www.pfu.co.jp/en/hhkeyboard/leaflet/photo.html#hhklite2>
>
> It works just fine and is nice and compact. However, there seems to be
> one catch for Mac users: I doesn't come with an 'enter' key, just a
> mis-labeled return key. On a Mac that's just not the same thing :-(

You should not need to install a driver:

Apple Technical Note TN2056 - Installable Keyboard Layouts
<http://developer.apple.com/technotes/tn2002/tn2056.html>

"Mac OS X 10.2 adds the ability to install a new keyboard layout by
putting a file or bundle in a standard folder. ..."

[Patrick Machielse]

I must confess that I already posted a question about this on Apple's
USB mailing list, and an engineer told me that indeed I would have to
write a kernel extension if I want to remap an individual meta key. He
also told me that Tiger will make this much easier, but he 'didn't know'
any details...

I'll have a look at the technote though, and see if it offers an easier
solution. Thanks.

patrick

[Paul Russell]

Patrick Machielse wrote:

According to their WWW site you need to set a DIP switch and install a
driver - did you do both of these things ?

Paul

[Patrick Machielse]

Paul Russell <prus...@sonic.net> wrote:

The driver is only for their Happy Hacking Professional keyboard, not
for the Lite2 USB. It enables the eject key, which works fine on the
Lite2 (F12). The dip switches don't enable the enter key.

I sent pfu an email asking about the enter key, and the person handling
their customer relations confirmed that he passed my question on to one
of their engineers. But so far no solution.

patrick

[Tom Harrington]

In article <1grmjva.1ycfggwq26mysN%nor...@mail.invalid>,
nor...@mail.invalid (Patrick Machielse) wrote:

Gee, and I was just looking into getting one of those.

I don't suppose something like Fn-Return or Alt-Return gives you an
'enter'? My Powerbook's keyboard works that way, and given the Happy
Hacking approach it would seem an obvious choice for them. Although
since it doesn't seem to be marked on the keyboard, maybe they didn't
think of it.

--
Tom "Tom" Harrington
Macaroni, Automated System Maintenance for Mac OS X.
Version 2.0: Delocalize, Repair Permissions, lots more.
See http://www.atomicbird.com/

[Patrick Machielse]

Tom Harrington <t...@pcisys.no.spam.dammit.net> wrote:

> > The driver is only for their Happy Hacking Professional keyboard, not
> > for the Lite2 USB. It enables the eject key, which works fine on the
> > Lite2 (F12). The dip switches don't enable the enter key.
> >
> > I sent pfu an email asking about the enter key, and the person handling
> > their customer relations confirmed that he passed my question on to one
> > of their engineers. But so far no solution.
>
> Gee, and I was just looking into getting one of those.
>
> I don't suppose something like Fn-Return or Alt-Return gives you an
> 'enter'? My Powerbook's keyboard works that way, and given the Happy
> Hacking approach it would seem an obvious choice for them. Although
> since it doesn't seem to be marked on the keyboard, maybe they didn't
> think of it.

I bought this keyboard too because it looks and works (almost) like a
powerbook keyboard. Sadly neither fn+return, alt+return, or
command+return (or any combination) does the trick.

Another small minus: above the return key ('enter') there is a key
labeled 'Delete' / 'BS' (). This key functions as delete. If you press
fn it works as Backspace. Using a dip switch you can turn it into a
Backspace (like on the powerbook) but fn won't work anymore!: it is now
a backspace only key... (delete key is fn + ~)

On the whole tough I'm pretty 'happy' with it. It has a nice touch, it
doesn't clutter the desk, it won't dwarf my Mac mini (in 6 months) and
it even has 2 downstream USB ports. Once I get the driver done (should
not be _too_ difficult) all will be fine.

patrick