Page 1 of 1

Strange happenings in The Pawn...

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2023 10:57 am
by Sparrowhawk
Nothing to do with the adventure's plot, but has anyone else experienced this:

After starting a new game of the of the original Pawn (not the new gfx-enhanced version), all was normal with my typing - I have a Hermes installed and was getting the keypress click and no keybounce. Suddenly, the kepress clicks stopped and I was back to lots of double letters appearing as I typed. This happened very near the start of the game.

Not a biggy as all returned to normal after a reset of the QL, but just curious as to what might be the cause. Can the Hermes debounce code be accidentally or otherwise disabled by software? I know the click can, but I thought the debounce was set for good.

Re: Strange happenings in The Pawn...

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2023 12:24 pm
by tofro
Sparrowhawk wrote: Mon Dec 18, 2023 10:57 am Nothing to do with the adventure's plot, but has anyone else experienced this:

After starting a new game of the of the original Pawn (not the new gfx-enhanced version), all was normal with my typing - I have a Hermes installed and was getting the keypress click and no keybounce. Suddenly, the kepress clicks stopped and I was back to lots of double letters appearing as I typed. This happened very near the start of the game.

Not a biggy as all returned to normal after a reset of the QL, but just curious as to what might be the cause. Can the Hermes debounce code be accidentally or otherwise disabled by software? I know the click can, but I thought the debounce was set for good.
This is not necessarily the debounce happening in Hermes (Nothing running on the QL would have access to that anyways and it's unlikely that was the problem) but rather the auto-repeat (which is, actually, handled by code running on the QL). Keyboard auto-repeat is controlled by two system variables (SV_ARDEL and SV_ARFRQ) setting the repeat frequency and the delay before auto-repeat starts. If something messes up these two variables, you will be having such hickups.

Re: Strange happenings in The Pawn...

Posted: Mon Dec 18, 2023 12:26 pm
by Sparrowhawk
Ahah! OK that makes sense then. Thanks :)