Will Haiku cater for the IBM PC users that can’t use their keyboard in BeOS?
Read more about it here:
http://yellowtab.com/phorum/phorum.php?read,48,115154
Thanks,
Meanwhile
We should support hardware for Haiku at least.
I don’t know if you’re talking about ps2 keyboards or usb keyboards. Anyway it often is a matter of testing the hardware, not a priority at the moment.
Bye,
Jérôme
It’s about ps/2 keyboards…I still hope someone will one day look into it.
Meanwhile, the Haiku input server is usable on R5 by itself. It might be worth trying it to see if Haiku’s input server already works with your setup.
OK, thanks tb100, I’ll dive into it (and might even resurface)…
Reward:
An as-new, unused Thermaltake Volcano 7 cooler (see link below) for the first one that can solve this problem!
I’m serious!
Meanwhile[at]outgun[d0t]com
Meanwhile wrote:
Reward:An as-new, unused Thermaltake Volcano 7 cooler (see link below) for the first one that can solve this problem!
I’m serious!
Meanwhile[at]outgun[d0t]com
By any chance can you plug a USB keyboard on this PC ? This would make things easier for you maybe.
Thanks for reacting again Korli!
I tried that but it doesn’t work…
After reading Zenja’s remarks about this:
“I remember reading about this problem which has plagued BeOS (and derivatives) for a very long time. The problem (from memory) was that BeOS decided to be more efficient by reading only a limited number of bits from keypress events (indicating key pressed), since at that time that was all that was required to uniquely identify the key pressed. Some manufacturers (notably IBM and such) embedded the keypress information in a different standard compared to the rest of the industry (with more bits needed to transmit the data). BeOS fails on these systems. It was a good engineering decision at the time (speed wise), but on these systems it doens’t work. I dont know if there is an updated input server which properly interprets the key codes.”
…my little brains figured that the Input Server from an earlier BeOS version -i.e. before BeOS decided to be more efficient- could perhaps simply replace the R5 Input Server and the problem would be solved…but hey: I don’t even know how deep into the OS the Input Server is nested and how removable it is, in fact I hardly even understand what it exactly does or is, so…
But it would be cool: no coding, just transplanting.
Bye,
Meanwhile
Meanwhile wrote:
…my little brains figured that the Input Server from an earlier BeOS version -i.e. before BeOS decided to be more efficient- could perhaps simply replace the R5 Input Server and the problem would be solved…but hey: I don’t even know how deep into the OS the Input Server is nested and how removable it is, in fact I hardly even understand what it exactly does or is, so…
But it would be cool: no coding, just transplanting.
Your problem is related to the hid driver on BeOS R5. Maybe have a look at http://downloads.planetmirror.com/pub/beos/samples/input_server/KeyboardMapping.zip .
About USB keyboard, you must be very unlucky, if your USB chipset isn’t supported by any flavor of BeOS …
Thanks, but what I can grasp from the textfile in that download, is that it provides a solution to non-working extra keys, like there are those for operating an audio cd etc. Although my keyboard has these extra buttons, I wouldn’t care if they didn’t work --> if only the common keys would work.
Because you see, there’s not a single key that works on any keyboard I plug into this model IBM pc running BeOS R5…even though the normal lights on them are lit like they should.
(The USB chipset -I think- is an Intel 82801BA/BAM which I haven’t been able to test because installing the USB storage module and patches requires some keyboard action)
Meanwhile
Meanwhile wrote:
Thanks, but what I can grasp from the textfile in that download, is that it provides a solution to non-working extra keys, like there are those for operating an audio cd etc. Although my keyboard has these extra buttons, I wouldn't care if they didn't work --> if only the common keys would work.
Actually this is also useful for non extra keys.
Meanwhile wrote:
(The USB chipset -I think- is an Intel 82801BA/BAM which I haven’t been able to test because installing the USB storage module and patches requires some keyboard action)
A workaround is to install BeOS with your harddisk on another computer, install patches, then put back your harddisk in your computer.
Korli wrote:
Actually this is also useful for non extra keys.
OK, thanks Korli, I’ll check it out.
(Will probably keep me busy for a few weekends 
)
Meanwhile
If your mouse works, you could use the Keymap Preference panel to “type” what you want and then select and drag the typed value. This is how I did the typing when my keyboard was broken. Not as a solution, but with this you may be able to do installations that require text input.
True, and that works pretty well but unfortunately to install the USB patches you have to rename things by clicking an affirm-button while at the same time pressing Shift (this is some kind of built-in extra measure to prevent trouble) so you’re one mouse short.
Thanks anyhow!
Meanwhile
You could do the rename from a Terminal (using mv) instead of using the Tracker. This should work wihtout a confirmation.
Good news…the first hope is on getting the keys to work by using the ‘Keyboardmapping.zip’ file, then installing the USB patches should be easy…but what’s the ‘mv’ you mentioned?
mv is the move command. Instead of renaming file A to B you can also “move” it from A to B like so:
mv /boot/home/fileA /boot/home/fileB
This will rename “fileA” to “fileB”. Do this from the Terminal. I just mentioned it because you said that you couldn’t rename a file from Tracker. With this you could finish installing the USB patches.
That’s very clear…thanks for adding more bright prospects, mmlr.
Quote from the textfile of Keyboardmapping.zip:
You’ll need to copy this add-on,
which is named “keyboard”, to the
/system/add-ons/input_server/devices/ directory, and then restart the
Input Server, either by running “/system/servers/input_server -q” in
a Terminal window, or by
bringing up the Team Monitor by pressing Ctrl+Alt+Delete,
selecting “input_server”, and then pressing the “Kill” button.
Is there a way to bring up the Team Monitor without using a keyboard? It seems I also can’t use Terminal because it needs an ‘Enter’…
You can type the return right after the command in the keymap preferences and then just select both lines. When you drop that into the Terminal it should execute right away.
In that case though you can just reboot the system. This will restart the input_server too 
.