From: jpierce@next11csc.wam.umd.edu (Jennifer Marie Pierce)
Subject: TSR keyboard driver, hard drive partitions.
Organization: Workstations at Maryland, University of Maryland, College Park
Date: Fri, 6 Nov 1992 17:23:43 GMT


I am currently running DOS 5.0 and Windoze 3.1.   I think it's a sad waste of  
my 486-33 (8mg ram, 212 HD).  I bought OS/2 and it's at home and I'm on campus,  
and I plan to install in the next two weeks.

I have two major concerns with this.  First of all, the hard drive.  I plan to  
use dual boot, and have therefore resigned myself to using the FAT format,  
though I'm planning to back up the whole thing anyway, if I can use HPFS, I  
would prefer it.  I have currently on my system WordPerfect 5.1 for DOS, a few  
comm programs (telix, procomm plus), a 30 megs of shareware (Apogee mostly) and  
commercial (Sierra) games, 20 megs of GIFS, and Microsoft Works for Windoze  
(came with the system, I haven't bothered to learn it yet.  I know MS works for  
the Macintosh very well, though.)  I have access to Excel for Windows, MS Word  
for Windows, and WordPerfect for Windows.
Do these apps run under OS/2?  In a DOS window at least?  How good is a DOS  
window?  Can I trust it?  I've heard the desktop crashes a lot.  How do I deal  
with that?   Is it possible to dual boot from a partitioned hard drive?  Does  
OS/2 come with any (or can you recommand any) good backup progs once I get the  
whole thing set up?  
I believe I'd like to keep DOS, Windows, WordPerfect, Pascal, Autocad, and the  
games in a DOS partition.  But if I can get OS/2 to use my windows apps, even  
my windows 3.1 desktop, then there's no need.  Do I run windows from a DOS  
window if I need to run 3.1, or what?  Does the DOS window work well enough for  
me to run these apps optimally?  (being better than Dos/Windows, that is?)  I'd  
appreciate any answers to any of these questions.
Is there a GIF viewer or do I have to use a DOS window?

Secondly, the keyboard driver.  Currently, I have a keyboard driver in my  
config.sys that overrides BIOS to remap the scan codes to buffer codes.  It is  
entirely configurable, and I chose to use a Dvorak keyboard configuration.  I  
got the layout from the Smithsonian museum and have switched the tops on my  
keyboard.  I did this on my old computer last January and then to my new oe (I  
just got the 486 in August) and have found switching back to QWERTY to be  
extremely annoying and cumbersome.  QWERTY is designed to be clumsy, and I hate  
it.
Windows uses its own keyboard driver, and though I haven't had need to use any  
text processing on Windows and have just closed my eyes and pretended it was  
QWERTY (having to try to remember where qwerty keys are) I recently discovered  
that Windows comes with a Dvorak keyboard driver.  However, they were  
apparently too lazy ts remap CapsLock (as I had to do when I configured my  
keyboard driver) and changed the keys around so that the entire bottom row is  
shifted to the right by one letter.  You can imagine how annoyting this is.   
I've spent a year learning to switch smoothly from qwerty to my dvorak layout  
and I discover that I need to either relearn dvorak or drop the whole thing  
entirely.
I'm not willing to drop it.
How does one hack at the Windoze keyboard driver?  All I have is a binary  
editor.
Is there a better source than the Smithsonian for the "proper" layout for  
Dvorak?  (If my layout is wrong and Windoze's layout is right, I am willing to  
reprogram my driver and relearn Dvorak.)
And now, the big question that you've all been waiting for...
HOW DO I INSTALL A DVORAK DRIVER ON OS/2?!?

(oops, capslock key there gets stuck, but you'll note that the right keys get  
capitalized)
No, it's not in the system keyboard window or whatever.  I checked.  (I don't  
have it on my 486 yet, but my dad has it on his office 386.)
I need an external device driver for OS/2.  I need it to be programmable.  I  
need it in two weeks.  

Having to go back to QWERTY on my good computer would absolutely drive me  
crazy.  And I know that the driver I'm using doesn't work under OS/2.

Please respond by email to jpierce@wam.umd.edu.  I can't keep up with news.

Sorry for the longwinded ranting and raving.  Thank you for reading it all.
Thank you in advance for any advice you are able to give me.

--
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