Nota Bene DOS 4.5 and WIN 5.x Keyboards

Over the years I (like many of you) have tinkered with my .kbd files. It's always struck me as a bit harder than it needed to be because the relevant information---Key, key # (in .kbd file), code, and description of function---was scattered about in different places. Now that NBWin is here I thought I'd get ready to tinker anew by gathering together the relevant information into some easy to read and use tables. Hah! As it turns out, easier said than done.

I've tested the tables in Netscape 4.5 & 4.7 and IE 4.01 & 5.0 but not other browsers or earlier versions of the Big 2. Some of the DOS code contains characters (e.g., ascii 13) that aren't viewable in their native format (at least not that I could figure out). So I've created GIF images for them. These images should all have "Alternate" descriptions, so even if you use a text-only browser (or have images turned off in NN or IE) you should be able to tell what they represent.

A Note on Printing: I've tried to construct the tables so that they'll scale to fit on a standard 8½ by 11 piece of paper. I briefly experimented with converting them to .pdf format, and while the .pdf versions looked and printed just fine, they weren't any better than the pages I printed in Netscape 4.7. And now that IE 5.5 has a "Print Preview" option, they should print better there too.

I hope these are as helpful to you in learning or adapting NB as they have been for me in putting them together. If you have any suggestions, encounter any problems, or note any inaccuracies, please let me know. Thanks.

Rick Penticoff

(Current to SWS Version 5.2  Last Updated: 30 October 2000)