Keys on Sun keyboards.
Dr. David Kirkby
320-1300, which is a UK keyboard according to the Sun system handbook.
http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/handbook_pub/Devices/Input_Device/INPUT_UK_Kbd.html
(it must be the only Sun UK item I own, as I normally import them from
the USA).
Can anyone tell me what some of the keys are supposed to do? Apart
from the obvious ones (space bar, letters, numbers, caps lock, tab,
shift, return, backspace, [];'#,./?>M~@:), copy, paste, cut, I also
know what
a) STOP-A does
b) STOP-N does
c) The one at the top right to switch the system on.
There are a lot of keys I've no idea what they are supposed to do, or
they perform the dead opposite of what logic says they should do.
At the time of sending this email I have netscape and and Mathematica
(maths package) open and have tried a few applications supplied with
the Solaris 9's CDE. Can anyone advise the purpose of any of the
following:
1) 'Props' seems to do noting.
2) 'Front', which seems to send an item that is in the foreground to
an icon - or toggle it between foreground and background, depending on
the application.
3) Open, which seems to inconise an open window
4) Undo seems to do nothing
5) Find does not seem to do anything.
6) The solid diamond shaped key to the left of the spacebar seems to
do nothing.
7) Print Screen/SysRq, which again seems to form no useful function.
8) The 3 keys to the top right, just to the left of the power-on
button. Despite what looks like diagrams showing a speaker off, on,
and louder, they make no difference to the audio level - on this Ultra
80 at least.
9) I assume the function keys are programmable in some way, although a
quick search with Google did not find out how to do that.
--
Dr. David Kirkby,
Senior Research Fellow,
Department of Medical Physics,
University College London,
11-20 Capper St, London, WC1E 6JA.
Tel: 020 7679 6408 Fax: 020 7679 6269
Internal telephone: ext 46408
e-mail da...@medphys.ucl.ac.uk
Dave Uhring
> I've an Ultra 80 running with Solaris 9 and a type 6 keyboard - P/N
> 320-1300, which is a UK keyboard according to the Sun system handbook.
> http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/handbook_pub/Devices/Input_Device/INPUT_UK_Kbd.html
> (it must be the only Sun UK item I own, as I normally import them from
> the USA).
>
> Can anyone tell me what some of the keys are supposed to do? Apart
> from the obvious ones (space bar, letters, numbers, caps lock, tab,
> shift, return, backspace, [];'#,./?>M~@:), copy, paste, cut, I also
> know what
>
> a) STOP-A does
> b) STOP-N does
> c) The one at the top right to switch the system on.
>
STOP-D will force a POST on power-up.
> There are a lot of keys I've no idea what they are supposed to do, or
> they perform the dead opposite of what logic says they should do.
>
> At the time of sending this email I have netscape and and Mathematica
> (maths package) open and have tried a few applications supplied with
> the Solaris 9's CDE. Can anyone advise the purpose of any of the
> following:
>
> 1) 'Props' seems to do noting.
>
>
> 2) 'Front', which seems to send an item that is in the foreground to
> an icon - or toggle it between foreground and background, depending on
> the application.
>
> 3) Open, which seems to inconise an open window
>
> 4) Undo seems to do nothing
>
> 5) Find does not seem to do anything.
>
All 3 used in dtterm for editing, as are Copy, Paste, Cut.
> 6) The solid diamond shaped key to the left of the spacebar seems to
> do nothing.
>
Meta-Key in Emacs.
> 7) Print Screen/SysRq, which again seems to form no useful function.
>
> 8) The 3 keys to the top right, just to the left of the power-on
> button. Despite what looks like diagrams showing a speaker off, on,
> and louder, they make no difference to the audio level - on this Ultra
> 80 at least.
>
My keyboard (Type-5C) has a blank key left of F1 and right of Help. Press
that with the Mute key and sound will mute.
> 9) I assume the function keys are programmable in some way, although a
> quick search with Google did not find out how to do that.
Two keys below the right Shift key are used to generate Euro characters in
dtedit. Compose - AltGraph/~ - n will produce the Spanish canon n.
Tim Bradshaw
> There are a lot of keys I've no idea what they are supposed to do, or
> they perform the dead opposite of what logic says they should do.
They are mostly decorative. Other than that their purpose is to
prevent `keyboard envy'. In the old days keyboards used to have a
reasonable number of keys, most of which did something useful[1].
However, with the advent of the IBM PC, with its plethora of obscurely
labelled and non-functional keys, it became fashionable for keyboards
to have be encrusted with keys and keypads (often several keypads)
whose purpose was simply to make the keyboard larger and thus more
impressive. Often these decorative keys were not in fact connected to
anything at all. These keyboards, if reasonably well made, became so
heavy that they needed special reinforced desks to support them (and
indeed, in extreme cases, reinforced floors and extra-large desks).
After a number of compensation claims after keyboards slipped off
desks, crushing and amputating the lower limbs of their users,
extremely lightweight keyboards were developed: these were often very
spongy and unpleasant to type on since the mechanisms were so flimsy,
but they were, at least, safe.
Workstation manufacturers held out against the trend for largely
decorative keyboards for several years, and even after partly giving
in they produced keyboards on which you could still actually type and
without *too* many purely decorative keys - the Sun type 3 keyboard is
a good example of this. However they experienced considerable
pressure from users who suffered from enormous keyboard envy - `how
come my office mate, who has a PC that cost a third of my workstation
has a keyboard with four times as many keys, and vastly increased
sponginess?'[2]. Eventually, the Unix vendors gave in, and modern Sun
keyboards, for instance, like PC keyboards, consist of a small useful
area of keys surrounded by an encrustation of purely decorative keys.
In addition they have achieved a level of sponginess that, dare I say
it, surpasses the levels of many PC keyboards. Never again need Sun
users feel inferiority at the size or quality of PC users' keyboards!
It is my guess that there will soon be a backlash, and so-called
`punk'[3] or `grunge' keyboards will appear, available at first only
from small `independent' keyboard sellers to be found in basements in
the less expensive parts of town. These keyboards will have a
reasonable number of functional keys, and be `clacky' rather than
spongy. Young, exciting, programmers will begin to be seen using
these keyboards, as well as strange, Lisp-family languages, often
programming on valve[4] or even partly mechanical computers. After a
few years, and the tragic death of a leading grunge programmer through
an overdose of parentheses, the industry will assimilate the new punk
style, and normal sponginess will be restored.
--tim
Footnotes:
[5] It is a theorem, however, that for any keyboard, there is always
at least *one* key with no known purpose. The proof is by
exhaustive search.
[2] Related to keyboard envy is `display depth envy': `how come I
paid all this money for a workstation and it only has 8-bit
colour, while my mate's PC has 432-bit colour? Ok he only has
896 pixels, as against my 2-million odd, so he can't actually do
any work, but Doom looks *way* better on his screen than mine!'
[3] in the US these will be known as `news wave'
[4] that's `tube' for USans
ger...@gtconnect.net
"Dr. David Kirkby" <drki...@ntlworld.com> writes:
> I've an Ultra 80 running with Solaris 9 and a type 6 keyboard - P/N
> 320-1300, which is a UK keyboard according to the Sun system handbook.
> http://sunsolve.Sun.COM/handbook_pub/Devices/Input_Device/INPUT_UK_Kbd.html
> (it must be the only Sun UK item I own, as I normally import them from
> the USA).
>
> Can anyone tell me what some of the keys are supposed to do? Apart
> from the obvious ones (space bar, letters, numbers, caps lock, tab,
> shift, return, backspace, [];'#,./?>M~@:), copy, paste, cut, I also
> know what
>
> a) STOP-A does
> b) STOP-N does
> c) The one at the top right to switch the system on.
>
> There are a lot of keys I've no idea what they are supposed to do, or
> they perform the dead opposite of what logic says they should do.
I use some of the left hand side keys all the time. Front
is particularly useful.
Others that seen non functional in CDE probably do something
in OpenView/Look whatever. Shift Diamond 12:00 will power off at OPB.
Copy Paste actually function on SunPCI from WinBlows to SPARC but
is a separate buffer from the X one (but sort of shared like a stack
and can really mess you up : >
Rich Teer
> My keyboard (Type-5C) has a blank key left of F1 and right of Help. Press
Yes, that's the "any" key, seen in applications as press any
key to continue. :-)
--
Rich Teer . * * . * .* .
. * . .*
President, * . . /\ ( . . *
Rite Online Inc. . . / .\ . * .
.*. / * \ . .
. /* o \ .
Voice: +1 (250) 979-1638 * '''||''' .
URL: http://www.rite-online.net ******************
Dave Uhring
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Dave Uhring wrote:
>
>> My keyboard (Type-5C) has a blank key left of F1 and right of Help. Press
>
> Yes, that's the "any" key, seen in applications as press any
> key to continue. :-)
Thank You! A friend and I have been desperately trying to figure out the
name of that one, especially since he doesn't have one on his Type 5
keyboard.
LOL!
Mike Guidero
> My keyboard (Type-5C) has a blank key left of F1 and right of Help. Press
> that with the Mute key and sound will mute.
I always wondered what that key was for. Of course, my machine mutes when
with a press of the mute key by itself. (It's an SS10, with that funky
external sound box.) I talked to my friend who gave the machine to me, and
it went like this:
ME: "What's the blank key for?"
HIM: "What's it say on it?"
ME: "Nothing, it's blank."
HIM: "Well, there ya go."
Now, blank keys just bother me for some reason, so I thought about what to
do. I have some rub-on labels laying around from the time I was into
electronics, so I took that and rubbed an "Any" onto the keytop.
So now I have an "Any" key.
Mike
Chris Morgan
> > Yes, that's the "any" key, seen in applications as press any
> > key to continue. :-)
>
> Thank You! A friend and I have been desperately trying to figure out the
> name of that one, especially since he doesn't have one on his Type 5
> keyboard.
He has to use Shift-Shift, sorry. Left to right if you have two shift
keys.
--
Chris Morgan
"Not so bad offer to discuss about"
- Best recent email spam subject line
Tony Miller
Tim Bradshaw wrote:
>
>
>
> Workstation manufacturers held out against the trend for largely
> decorative keyboards for several years, and even after partly giving
> in they produced keyboards on which you could still actually type and
> without *too* many purely decorative keys - the Sun type 3 keyboard is
> a good example of this. However they experienced considerable
> pressure from users who suffered from enormous keyboard envy - `how
> come my office mate, who has a PC that cost a third of my workstation
> has a keyboard with four times as many keys, and vastly increased
> sponginess?'[2]. Eventually, the Unix vendors gave in, and modern Sun
> keyboards, for instance, like PC keyboards, consist of a small useful
> area of keys surrounded by an encrustation of purely decorative keys.
> In addition they have achieved a level of sponginess that, dare I say
> it, surpasses the levels of many PC keyboards. Never again need Sun
> users feel inferiority at the size or quality of PC users' keyboards!
Long live my IBM keyboard!
>
> It is my guess that there will soon be a backlash, and so-called
> `punk'[3] or `grunge' keyboards will appear, available at first only
> from small `independent' keyboard sellers to be found in basements in
> the less expensive parts of town. These keyboards will have a
> reasonable number of functional keys, and be `clacky' rather than
> spongy. Young, exciting, programmers will begin to be seen using
> these keyboards, as well as strange, Lisp-family languages, often
> programming on valve[4] or even partly mechanical computers. After a
> few years, and the tragic death of a leading grunge programmer through
> an overdose of parentheses, the industry will assimilate the new punk
> style, and normal sponginess will be restored.
>
> --tim
Ahh, this has already happened. See:
http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pfuca-store/
This comes in a multi platform Sun/Mac/Lintel version.
>
> [2] Related to keyboard envy is `display depth envy': `how come I
> paid all this money for a workstation and it only has 8-bit
> colour, while my mate's PC has 432-bit colour? Ok he only has
> 896 pixels, as against my 2-million odd, so he can't actually do
> any work, but Doom looks *way* better on his screen than mine!'
Long a problem in the Sun hardware world, but not in the SGI one...
--
Tony Miller
VTLS Multimedia Department, Gateway Development Section
540-557-1201, ext 3328 <=> mil...@vtls.com
Tony Miller
Good answer! I have one Type 5c that has the blank key between Help and
F1, the Control key to the left of the 'A', and the Caps Lock key below
the shift key (UNIX layout, perhaps?). I have another with the key
between Help and F1 labeled Esc, a Caps Lock beside the A, and the
Control key below the left shift key (PC layout perhaps?).
--
Tony Miller
x
> On Tue, 17 Dec 2002 13:00:51 +0000, Dr. David Kirkby wrote:
>>
> All 3 used in dtterm for editing, as are Copy, Paste, Cut.
left mouse, right mouse, ok, you do need cut...
Dave Uhring
^^^^^^
????????
Tim Bradshaw
> Ahh, this has already happened. See:
> http://shop.store.yahoo.com/pfuca-store/
> This comes in a multi platform Sun/Mac/Lintel version.
Yes, these things satisfy the no-decorative-keys bit, but when I tried
one it was definitely not clacky enough, and didn't seem to have
enough metal in its construction. Kind of like listening to one of
these nouveau-grunge bands compared to the originals...
--tim
emg...@gmx.net
[...]
> 4) Undo seems to do nothing
> 5) Find does not seem to do anything.
I usually program these (as well Cut, Copy, Paste) to be of use in
XEmacs...
> 6) The solid diamond shaped key to the left of the spacebar seems to
> do nothing.
I've seen them being used as "Meta" keys since I know Suns - they were e.g.
used in conjunction with the cursor keys and function keys to switch desks
in olvwm (IIRC) - in any case, I got so usd to it that I reconfigured
every window manager I've used since (be it CDE or Window Maker) to use
those combos. I even reconfigured the "Windoze" keys on my Linux iX86es to
have the same function... :-}
[...]
> 8) The 3 keys to the top right, just to the left of the power-on
> button. Despite what looks like diagrams showing a speaker off, on,
> and louder, they make no difference to the audio level - on this Ultra
> 80 at least.
They definitely did work for audio on the SS10 I've been working with some
time ago, but I don't remember which Solaris (or was it SunOS?) it was
running at the time...
> 9) I assume the function keys are programmable in some way, although a
> quick search with Google did not find out how to do that.
'xmodmap' can be used to some extent. Also, CDE has some options to assign
keys ("Hotkey Editor" - 'Meta' shows up as 'Mod4' here.
Cheerio,
Thomas
Rich Teer
> Good answer! I have one Type 5c that has the blank key between Help and
> F1, the Control key to the left of the 'A', and the Caps Lock key below
> the shift key (UNIX layout, perhaps?). I have another with the key
Yes.
> between Help and F1 labeled Esc, a Caps Lock beside the A, and the
> Control key below the left shift key (PC layout perhaps?).
... and yes!
Alan Coopersmith
|c) The one at the top right to switch the system on.
Or to invoke sys-suspend to suspend/shutdown the system once booted.
(And on USB systems that's all it's good for - it won't power on.)
Many of the keys on the left are used in SunView and/or OpenWindows,
but haven't fully transitioned to later environments.
|6) The solid diamond shaped key to the left of the spacebar seems to
|do nothing.
It's usually mapped to Alt or Meta.
|7) Print Screen/SysRq, which again seems to form no useful function.
In GNOME it will take a screen snapshot I believe.
|8) The 3 keys to the top right, just to the left of the power-on
|button. Despite what looks like diagrams showing a speaker off, on,
|and louder, they make no difference to the audio level - on this Ultra
|80 at least.
CDE in Solaris 8 Update 2 & later will use those to adjust the system
volume. If you've got a custom dtwmrc it may not pick them up from the
system version however. From the README of 108923:
This patch provides programs that change the speaker volume when the
audio control keys are pressed on a Sun keyboard. To use these programs,
the user's window manager needs to be configured to call them when the
keys are pressed. Patch 108921-03 (or newer) include modifications to
the system configuration files for the CDE window manager to make the
audio control keys call these programs. However, users using localized
or customized versions of the dtwm configuration files (including users
who have used CDE with the Solaris Desktop Extensions installed) will
have to add the following three lines to their $HOME/.dt/$LANG/dtwmrc
file in the "Keys DtKeyBindings" section:
<Key>SunAudioMute root|icon|window|ifkey f.exec
/usr/dt/appconfig/sdtvolctl/muteVolume
<Key>SunAudioRaiseVolume root|icon|window|ifkey f.exec
/usr/dt/appconfig/sdtvolctl/volumeUp
<Key>SunAudioLowerVolume root|icon|window|ifkey f.exec
/usr/dt/appconfig/sdtvolctl/volumeDown
|9) I assume the function keys are programmable in some way, although a
|quick search with Google did not find out how to do that.
They're usually application or window manager specific. You should be
able to assign them to actions in your dtwmrc if you're using CDE.
--
________________________________________________________________________
Alan Coopersmith al...@alum.calberkeley.org
http://www.CSUA.Berkeley.EDU/~alanc/ aka: Alan.Coo...@Sun.COM
Working for, but definitely not speaking for, Sun Microsystems, Inc.
Alan Coopersmith
|On Tue, 17 Dec 2002, Dave Uhring wrote:
|
|> My keyboard (Type-5C) has a blank key left of F1 and right of Help. Press
|
|Yes, that's the "any" key, seen in applications as press any
|key to continue. :-)
Stupid keyboard tricks on Solaris 8/9: Install the latest Xsun & XKB
patches, add +kb to your Xsun command line options in
/etc/dt/config/Xservers (this will activate the XKB extension - you can
confirm with xdpyinfo | grep XKEYBOARD), and once you've restarted your
Xserver with XKB, run:
xmodmap -e "keycode 22 = 0xFED5"
This will map the "any" key on a Type 5 keyboard to the
XK_Terminate_Server (0xFED5) keysym, giving you a two-key savings over
those silly Linux users who need a three-key salute to kill their
Xserver! (Use /usr/X/demo/Xev to find the keycode if you want to map
some other key to this action.) Of course, you do this at your own risk
- no one else will be held liable if your cat/child/fat fingers/etc.
accidently hit this key and kills your Xsession with hours of unsaved
work on your program/thesis/book/etc. (Which is probably why XFree86
does require three simaltaneuos key presses.)
Markus Gyger
> 6) The solid diamond shaped key to the left of the spacebar seems to
> do nothing.
If you use CDE (dtterm) and ksh (or applications that use libtecla,
and perhaps also readline/bash), then you can use it instead of the
escape key. Put the following in file /etc/dt/app-defaults/C/Dtterm
#include "/usr/dt/app-defaults/C/Dtterm"
Dtterm*KshMode: True
(or use xrdb -m; or dtterm -kshMode). Then e.g.
Diamond+* and Esc-* both expand filenames when
using ksh in emacs mode (set -o emacs). Or e.g.
Diamond+letter is replaced by the expanded alias
defined as _letter='whatever' (see "soft-key" in
man ksh -- if you include a newline then it even
executes it).
Markus
Charles Lindsey
^^^^^
middle
However, those usages are a Motif abomination. They do NOT do the same as
Copy and Paste, because they do not involve the Clipboard.
--
Charles H. Lindsey ---------At Home, doing my own thing------------------------
Tel: +44 161 436 6131 Fax: +44 161 436 6133 Web: http://www.cs.man.ac.uk/~chl
Email: c...@clw.cs.man.ac.uk Snail: 5 Clerewood Ave, CHEADLE, SK8 3JU, U.K.
PGP: 2C15F1A9 Fingerprint: 73 6D C2 51 93 A0 01 E7 65 E8 64 7E 14 A4 AB A5
Richard L. Hamilton
Alan Coopersmith <al...@alum.calberkeley.org> writes:
> "Dr. David Kirkby" <drki...@ntlworld.com> writes in comp.sys.sun.admin:
>|7) Print Screen/SysRq, which again seems to form no useful function.
>
> In GNOME it will take a screen snapshot I believe.
SysRq started out life as a 3270 (IBM mainframe) terminal kind of thing.
Maybe some 3270 emulator uses it. But to get at the darn keysym takes
<AltGraph><Shift><SysRq>, which is just a bit much.
[...]
--
mailto:rlh...@mindwarp.smart.net http://www.smart.net/~rlhamil