Hi, in default Symbolic US layout certain PETSCII characters are very hard to generate. I am not sure if this is a bug or intended behaviour.
If a bug: Would be great to fix
If not a bug: I'd love to understand the mechanics of why the following happens
ANSII keys in question:
2@
8*
6π
+=
-←
To generate the PETSCII characters that usually appears on the righthand side of the original C64's keys of the same type, it is necessary to hit SHIFT simultaneously with the key several times. The correct PETSCII will only appear 6% of the time.
Try it yourself: To get the backwards L PETSCII that appears on the righthand side of the C64's @ key it is necessary to hit SHIFT and 2 simultaneously many times and eventually the backwards L PETSCII will appear. There seems to be no other way to generate that PETSCII. The same goes for the other keys above.
My question is: Why?
Could it be easier to use Alt as a modifier key perhaps?
Thank you.
The symbolic keymaps are designed to make it easier to type the symbols that are on host keyboards. If you want to type PetSCII graphics characters, then you must switch to a positional keymap, and remember where those graphics sit on Commodore's keyboards.
We discussed this on IRC - its a combination of broken keymaps and keyboard code issues (both in GTK and VICE)