Mike's PCjr Page

Now that I have mass storage and want to use sub-directories, how do I enter a "\" from the jr keyboard? In the lower right corner there is a key that is labeled "/ \" on the bottom with "?" on the top. The "\" is in green so I figured I needed to press Fn and that key at the same time but I get "/" regardless. In some cases a backslash will suffice but not at the DOS prompt as far as I can see.

Come on! This is easy!

The color is actually blue ... try Alt-/ to get a backslash.


Mike

Thanks Mike. I finally figured that out! My eyes aren't so good anymore. I had to lift the keyboard up real close to see that the "\" was blue not green. I knew there had to be a way!

Sadly, I had to look it up because I've not used a real PCjr keyboard in years. (I'm a fan of the PC 5150 keyboard or a Model M, even on my Jrs ...)

How do you connect a real 83-key (or 101-key Model M) to a PCjr? Was there ever an IBM-provided cable for that? If not, where would I get one of those wacky square connectors to build my own?

The wacky square box is a Racore product. There was also a more 'hackish' solution from a company called Synectics, and I know there are some homebrew designs.

I'm not sure how these designs work. PC keyboards and PCjr keyboards transmit serial data streams, but the PCjr has different scan key codes. I would think that something in the box has to translate the scan keys from the bigger keyboard to the correct 62 key equivalent, and that would take a bit of logic.

On the other hand, the Jr seems to know about extended keyboards - take a look at the built-in diagnostics and you'll notice two different selections for keyboard test. One is for the standard keyboard, and one is for the extended keyboard. It's my understanding that the extended keyboard test was an escape from the lab and shouldn't be there. Some crawling through the BIOS listing will be required to see exactly how full sized keyboards are supported.