Tatung Computer Forum

If you're having issues with your keyboard with non-working or missing keys, the following little hack may prove useful.

My 'T' key started functioning intermittently, probably resulting from a little dirt affecting the mechanism. Eventually it decided to stop working completely, making the computer almost unusable. I couldn't type any file names with a 'T', type LIST in Basic, enter the T command in MOS, or select a track via T with DISCMOD, etc.

So I set up a Function key to type a 'T'. With SHIFT there are 16 different Function key combinations that are available. So run BASIC (I generally use X80 as it's compatible with 80 track discs on my system) and run and save the following program:

10 KEY 2, CHR$(116)
20 KEY 10, CHR$(84)

Type DOS to return to DOS if required.

Then pressing F2 (just above the 'T' key) gives a small 't' and SHIFT/F2 gives a capital 'T'! Back in business!

This survives a CTRL/BREAK reboot, switching between MOS and DOS, etc.

Obviously this doesn't survive a complete reset but you can run the .XBS file from BASIC to save retyping to speed this up when initialising.

Thankfully the issue was short lived and all went back to normal after a few weeks

This hack uses CHR$() with an ASCII code to set a Function Key to replace a non-working key. But when my 'C' key stopped working, I wondered what I might do now as I couldn't type 'CHR$'.

I'd not really used the cursor control arrow keys previously, and was surprised to discover the Einstein has some rather nifty copying facilities. If there's a character anywhere on the screen you can copy it.

You just scroll over the character/s you wish to copy with the cursor control keys using SHIFT if necessary and then press ENTER to confirm. Remember SHIFT/INS inserts extra spaces to reposition characters if needed. Really useful for editing

So I found a basic program with a 'C', deleted the program lines I didn't need, and edited the line with the 'C' to assign a function key using CHR$.

Pleased to say all went back to normal after a few days after some vigorous repeated pressing of the non-working key freed the mechanism.