ADFFS 2.86 public beta

[wmd]

I actually have a spare A5000 keyboard I can test. It's still wrapped up after I bought it on ebay last year and forgot about it. I'll dig it out and test it.

[wmd]

I unpacked the spare keyboard today and tested, and the issue persists, so it's not likely to be a hardware issue. One interesting thing I noticed - I tested on Zelanites again, and that game only has 3 control keys - left (Z), right (X), and fire (RETURN). When you press those 3 keys at the same time, the issue does not occur, but when you press Z X ' ? at the same time, the game quits to the title screen. That is interesting, as the game does not use the ' / keys.

[wmd]

The common factor is probably games that use ESC to quit back to the menu.

If this is the case, can ADFFS patch those games affected so that Esc to quit is reassigned to the Q key?

[JonAbbott]

I unpacked the spare keyboard today and tested, and the issue persists, so it's not likely to be a hardware issue. <snip>
That is interesting, as the game does not use the ' / keys.

From what I understand, its a design flaw with all Acorn membrane based keyboards, so all A30x0 and A5000 (I've not found my A4000 keyboard to pull it apart to check, but its probably also affected). The game code isn't the issue as Escape is triggered by the OS. How the game then handles Escape obviously then plays a part.

I do recall it being a major issue for multiplayer games at the time. Dungeons - which is a 4-player PD game I wrote (a clone of Dunjunz on the BBC), was unplayable on A30x0.

The common factor is probably games that use ESC to quit back to the menu.

If this is the case, can ADFFS patch those games affected so that Esc to quit is reassigned to the Q key?

That's not something I'm going to spend any time on as it would involve either modifying every game's keyboard code - which is probably a non-starter, or modifying the OS keyboard handler to ignore ESC if other keys are pressed.

Patching the OS is the more logical, although that's not so straight forward on IOC based machines as Acorn didn't introduce the software vector to take over the keyboard until RO3.5.

[wmd]

When you say "patching the OS" is that something that can be done via ADFFS or some other method?

[JonAbbott]

When you say "patching the OS" is that something that can be done via ADFFS or some other method?

Not by ADFFS. The only realistic solution is to use a non-membrane keyboard, such as an A3xx keyboard.

[wmd]

How do I use an A3xx/A4xx keyboard with an A5000?

[JonAbbott]

How do I use an A3xx/A4xx keyboard with an A5000?

I'm not sure I follow, it's a straight swap.

[wmd]

Great, I will try and source one then. Not sure why I thought they were not directly compatible. Probably a misreading of something I read on the stardot forum.

[JonAbbott]

Updated build in the OP, which fixes various bugs I've come across while testing.

Provided I don't come across any issues while updating/testing the packages that need changing for 2.86, this will become the release version.