Keyboard reference

Prefix keys

Use prefixes sequentially: press the prefix, then the next key. Repeated events of a held prefix are suppressed. Normal character repeats are supplied by RTC-paced controller rescanning, nominally up to eight per second; this is not a multi-key rollover or key-release API.

Context-specific controls

Translated control codes

The runtime’s periodic cancellation poll consumes a key and only acts on code 3. It can therefore consume an ordinary key before a later INKEY expression observes it. INKEY is event polling, not a reliable held-key matrix or queued-message contract for every physical key.

Because arrow and SU codes overlap, up-arrow can cancel outside the editor and down-arrow can end console CAT. The table describes the actual translated API in this release.

Entering punctuation

V/N followed by backslash gives |; V/N followed by 2 gives a double quote; V/N followed by 8 gives (; V/N followed by 9 gives ); V/N followed by colon gives *; V/N followed by semicolon gives +.

Physical-map limitation in 0.6: =, < and > can exist in files and are accepted by the compiler, but the implemented physical-key translation has no combination that produces them. V/N plus minus remains minus; it does not produce equals. The editor has no numeric character-entry command. New programs needing these characters cannot be entered completely from the physical keyboard with this mapping. Existing sources, including the supplied demo, retain their stored characters.

Complete FK expansion table

In the table, “key” is the normal 0.6 Latin-map character or control, and raw is the physical key byte in hexadecimal. Every word except a function ending in ( receives a trailing space. The factory-style table has 51 entries.

Insertion availability does not imply compiler support. In particular RUN, SAVE, LOAD, DIM, DATA, READ, PLAY and the other unimplemented factory words are not silently accepted by MBC. They remain ordinary text in the editor.