Want a "meta" key for Gnu emacs on 4D's
Robert Mecklenburg
mecklen%gr.utah.edu at wasatch.utah.edu
Thu May 4 02:21:44 AEST 1989
We run Gnu emacs on personal irises and a 4D/140GT. The editor works well
(although we haven't bothered to compile in job control), but lacks a meta key.
Here's what we've found:
a. The keyboard is equipped with a conveniently located "ALT" key, but it
doesn't just set the eighth bit, it redefines the entire key sequence
(as documented in "4Sight User's Guide" page GA-5). Furthermore, the
eighth bit is zero on the down event and one on the up event.
b. Gnu emacs has features to use ANSI style function keys, however this
does not include any support of the "ALT" key in particular.
c. The file "/usr/include/gl/ansicode.h" in conjunction with the "4Sight
User's Guide" page GA-3 suggests that wsh might have meta key
translation:
/usr/include/gl/ansicode.h:
#define SGIMKEN 99 /* meta key enable/disable */
But all reasonable control sequences I've tried using this flag/number
have no effect.
d. The NeWs server might be induced to perform meta key translation (as
suggested by "/usr/NeWs/lib/NeWs/bindkey.ps"), however, to be useful
you would want to rebind every key on the keyboard (116 of them) and
the shifted and controled versions as well. That's a *big* translation
table.
e. Finally, it is certainly possible to extend Gnu with a "smart" get
character function which could perform the necessary translation, but
this is even more painful than (d) (but probably more robust and
faster).
So the question is: Is there any way to get a "real" meta key?
Thanks
Robert Mecklenburg
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