DOS ain't dead

RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces (Announce)

posted by bretjohn  , Rio Rancho, NM, 10.08.2010, 22:35

> Yes and yes. Especially interesting in that combination: Bret could change
> his driver accordingly. (E.g. to simulate a COM3 which actually is just
> some USB keyboard. (And output goes to the default screen. Or NUL. Or
> somewhere else.))

It's actually more complicated than that. What DOS expects to see are ASCII characters, not the scan codes that PS/2 keyboards generate or USB codes that USB keyboards generate. Although a PS/2 port is serial and similar in many ways to a standard COM port, the "characters" that are sent across the wires are not anything that DOS can understand natively. They must first be "translated", either by the BIOS or a country/language-specific keyboard driver.

IOW, the "keyboard translation driver" (BIOS or KEYB.COM or whatever) would have to send its output to COM3 -- it wouldn't do any good for USBKEYB to do it. To have two separate keyboards for DOS, you would need a version of KEYB.COM (or some equivalent) that accepted multiple inputs and generated multiple outputs.

Complete thread:

• CuteMouse v2.1b4 - some fixes - Japheth, 09.08.2010, 07:18 (Announce)
  • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - some fixes - swf, 09.08.2010, 17:33
    • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - some fixes - Japheth, 10.08.2010, 06:54
    • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - support for 2 mice? OptiMAME/OptiMouse - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 09:34
      • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - support for 2 mice? OptiMAME/OptiMouse - bretjohn, 10.08.2010, 18:35
        • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - support for 2 mice? OptiMAME/OptiMouse - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 18:53
          • support for 2 mice? - ecm, 10.08.2010, 19:04
            • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 19:32
              • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - ecm, 10.08.2010, 19:38
                • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 19:53
                  • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - bretjohn, 10.08.2010, 20:20
                    • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - ecm, 10.08.2010, 20:35
                      • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 20:57
                        • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - ecm, 10.08.2010, 21:04
                      • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - bretjohn, 10.08.2010, 21:07
                        • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - ecm, 10.08.2010, 21:15
                    • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 20:48
                      • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - ecm, 10.08.2010, 20:51
                  • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - ecm, 10.08.2010, 20:30
              • support for 2 mice? 3 mice etc. CPNMOUSE for Windows - marcov, 11.08.2010, 15:48
            • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 20:10
              • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - ecm, 10.08.2010, 20:38
                • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 20:51
                  • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - ecm, 10.08.2010, 20:57
                    • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 21:11
                      • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 21:20
                      • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - ecm, 10.08.2010, 21:22
                        • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 21:39
                          • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - ecm, 10.08.2010, 21:53
                            • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - bretjohn, 10.08.2010, 22:35
                          • RS232 to keyboard / interesting keyboard hardware interfaces - bretjohn, 10.08.2010, 22:08
          • Free util that supports dual Monitors under MS-DOS/FREEDOS - Arjay, 16.08.2010, 13:23
            • dual PS2 keyboards (shared output) under MS-DOS/FREEDOS - Arjay, 16.08.2010, 14:19
    • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - some fixes - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 11:08
  • CuteMouse v2.1b4 - an interesting idea from Vintage Computer - Arjay, 10.08.2010, 13:13