Is possible to re-assign amiga keycodes to support different keyboards?

[guybrush]

I am thinking about how the Amiga 1200 keyboard is actually working: the signal is coming from the keyboard chip, and the IC get that signal and knows that the key pressed is for example A, because it receive the hexadecimal code from the keyboard chip.


But what if I want to change that "table" that the Amiga use; so if I send a different hex code I can assign it to a different key? Would that be possible ?


You may ask why you want to do that... And the question is totally legit. I want to use a keyboard that is not made for the Amiga. I can use a keyboard adapter of course, but those are responding to hex values sent by PS2 or USB keyboards. What if I want to use home as Amiga key, or Pause as Help button? I can't do that because the USB or PS2 adapter is not coded to do that; and to my knowledge, no adapter allow you to modify what you get from the PC keyboard; they just assume that what is on the Amiga keyboard match 1:1 with the PC keyboard, and for Del and Home they pick 2 keys and call the day.


I would like instead to be able to control which keys from the PS2 or USB keyboard I trigger on the amiga, and this is why I started to look at how to achieve this on the Amiga itself. I assume that there is something on the ROM that tell the Amiga how to recognize keys, so there must be a way to override that and customize the association right? Even if it works only in Workbench that would be OK to be honest, but ideally I wish I could make this change to be booted when the Amiga boot up

[Marce]

Originally Posted by guybrush

I am thinking about how the Amiga 1200 keyboard is actually working: the signal is coming from the keyboard chip, and the IC get that signal and knows that the key pressed is for example A, because it receive the hexadecimal code from the keyboard chip.


But what if I want to change that "table" that the Amiga use; so if I send a different hex code I can assign it to a different key? Would that be possible ?


You may ask why you want to do that... And the question is totally legit. I want to use a keyboard that is not made for the Amiga. I can use a keyboard adapter of course, but those are responding to hex values sent by PS2 or USB keyboards. What if I want to use home as Amiga key, or Pause as Help button? I can't do that because the USB or PS2 adapter is not coded to do that; and to my knowledge, no adapter allow you to modify what you get from the PC keyboard; they just assume that what is on the Amiga keyboard match 1:1 with the PC keyboard, and for Del and Home they pick 2 keys and call the day.


I would like instead to be able to control which keys from the PS2 or USB keyboard I trigger on the amiga, and this is why I started to look at how to achieve this on the Amiga itself. I assume that there is something on the ROM that tell the Amiga how to recognize keys, so there must be a way to override that and customize the association right? Even if it works only in Workbench that would be OK to be honest, but ideally I wish I could make this change to be booted when the Amiga boot up

perhaps you are looking for a program as KME which is a keymap editor?
around 2001-2002 I created a driver for spanish keyboards for winuae using such proggy

[guybrush]

Originally Posted by Marce

perhaps you are looking for a program as KME which is a keymap editor?
around 2001-2002 I created a driver for spanish keyboards for winuae using such proggy

Thanks, isn't a keymap just re-assigning the same input coming from the keyboard, to a different character in a different set?



For example, the right CTRL of a windows keyboard has keycode 163, while the right Amiga key has hex 67; If I want to re-assign this key on the windows keyboard, I need to tell Workbench/Intuition that the key associated to 67 should be triggered when the code 163 is registered.


Can you do that with a keymap? Basically you need to tell the Amiga to not use a specific code but another one

[Jope]

The qualifiers cannot be remapped with a keymap, only the printable keys.. You would need to do this with an external adapter.

[guybrush]

Originally Posted by Jope

The qualifiers cannot be remapped with a keymap, only the printable keys.. You would need to do this with an external adapter.

I see, so there is no way to change the assignments via software.


Considering that no adapter I am aware of, is able to remap Amiga keys; how would I achieve the switch of the functionality of the right CTRL key to be the right Amiga key? In an emulator I can do that easily but doing it on a real Amiga has been quite an issue (my keyboard does not have 2 WIN keys, so I am lacking the right Amiga key at this point)

[coldacid]

You should be able to use the Apps/Context key as the right Amiga key in WinUAE. (Which leads in my case to having my right Amiga key to the immediate left of my left Amiga key due to the physical layout of my keyboard, the current Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.)

[guybrush]

Originally Posted by coldacid

You should be able to use the Apps/Context key as the right Amiga key in WinUAE. (Which leads in my case to having my right Amiga key to the immediate left of my left Amiga key due to the physical layout of my keyboard, the current Microsoft ergonomic keyboard.)

Yes, that I know, but I am trying to do the same on a real Amiga. The other alternative is to go hunting for an old keyboard with 2 WIN keys... which are basically abandoned at this point because all new keyboard seems to have the FN and menu keys on the right as standard.

[QuikSanz]

@guybrush,

Lyra3 adapter? here " http://amigakit.amiga.store/lyra-key...6&currency=GBP "

Chris

[guybrush]

Originally Posted by QuikSanz

@guybrush,

Lyra3 adapter? here " http://amigakit.amiga.store/lyra-key...6&currency=GBP "

Chris

Thanks; is that able to take a USB or PS2 keyboard input and allow to change the keycode sent? I thought the Lyra is only usable with original ribbon keyboards and does not support remapping

[QuikSanz]

models, 1 for wedge, 1 for big box. There is a programming tool for it on the aminet to swap keys around "lyra3 tool".

Chris

[Krashan]

Originally Posted by guybrush

But what if I want to change that "table" that the Amiga use; so if I send a different hex code I can assign it to a different key? Would that be possible? You may ask why you want to do that... And the question is totally legit. I want to use a keyboard that is not made for the Amiga. I can use a keyboard adapter of course, but those are responding to hex values sent by PS2 or USB keyboards. What if I want to use home as Amiga key, or Pause as Help button? I can't do that because the USB or PS2 adapter is not coded to do that;

It depends on this keyboard you want to use. A PC keyboard has its own controller chip, which scans the keyboard matrix, detects keydown and keyup events then sends PC compatible codes via USB or PS/2 interface. Then you build your own USB->Amiga keyboard adapter (which bypasses controller chip on A1200 mobo, as all of them do). You can either hardcode your favourite mapping into this adapter, or even make it configurable somehow.

[guybrush]

Originally Posted by Krashan

It depends on this keyboard you want to use. A PC keyboard has its own controller chip, which scans the keyboard matrix, detects keydown and keyup events then sends PC compatible codes via USB or PS/2 interface. Then you build your own USB->Amiga keyboard adapter (which bypasses controller chip on A1200 mobo, as all of them do). You can either hardcode your favourite mapping into this adapter, or even make it configurable somehow.

I see; thanks for the info. So basically I need a "translator" in the middle, between the USB/PS2 keyboard and the Amiga.


Every comment seems to point at details that would be solved with a Lyra device at this point. I thought that since the Amiga has to have a conversion table for codes coming in from the keyboard controller, it could be manipulated to send instead a different keycode, but so far nobody confirmed this so I guess it is not possible.

[Jope]

The setmap/keymaps feature is this conversion table, but unfortunately it does not support remapping the qualifiers.

Otherwise you would write or find an input handler which sits on the input chain with the highest priority and does the translation before any other input handler finds it. This will work when the OS is running and when using 100% os friendly software.