[Info-vax] Keypad state in various VMS utilities

[Jan-Erik Söderholm]

Den 2020-10-03 kl. 22:41, skrev Phillip Helbig (undress to reply):
> In article <3a77c8ba-b675-47db-9e16-0682af8f721an at googlegroups.com>,
> David Jones <osuvman50 at gmail.com> writes:
> 
>> I use SMG all the time solely for its virtual keyboard recall buffer
>> feature. I never see the keypad being put in application mode unless I
>> create a key table and include it as an argument in the read call. I
>> rarely find it worth the trouble to define application keypad keys in
>> command line interfaces (as opposed to screen oriented interfaces).
> 
> I use the keypad in EDT (OK, screen oriented), MAIL and NEWSRDR (in
> addition to the EDT keypad when using EDT within those applications),
> which I guess are command-line interfaces, probabably several hours a
> day (and, occasionally, the debugger as well) and have been doing so for
> more than a quarter of a century, which means that I have saved a huge
> amount of time thanks to the application keypad, and why a real VMS
> keyboard is a necessity for me.  Of course, people who never learned to
> type blindly with ten fingers have probably wasted so many years of
> their life already that the relative benefit from a keypad (which should
> also be used with, if not 10, then 5 fingers, and blindly) is probably
> minimal.
> 

I have used the PC numeric keypad for so long with EDT that I'd probably
miss some strokes if presented with "real" (whatever that is today!)
"VMS keyboard". I find it better to simply learn to use whatever there
is available today. And so I did 25+ years ago.

Anyway, when I have used EDT and then switch back to som PC application,
I usually have to press "NumLock" to get the digits back on the keypad.
I'm not sure if that this is a similar issue that is described here...