VT220 COMPOSE Key Question

From: Paul Williams <flo_at_rdel.co.uk>
Date: Wed Apr 4 10:51:24 2001

Jerome Fine wrote:
>
> I would appreciate some help with the COMPOSE key on a VT220
> LK201 keyboard, more specifically what it can do with the VT220
> and the details of how it can be done.

The COMPOSE key doesn't let you generate arbitrary sequences of
characters. When you press COMPOSE followed by two other characters, the
terminal will send an accented character or unusual punctuation mark.
These sequences are quite mnemonic, so that COMPOSE ' e (apostrophe e)
will produce an "e" with an acute accent. More details in the Using the
VT320[1].

> Is it possible to change the <GOLD> key to output a different
> sequence of characters, or more specifically, either change the
> last character to "I" or have the <GOLD> key produce "<ESC>[36~"
> so it in effect becomes F22.

In VT100/200 mode, you the PF1 key will always transmit SS3 P (or ESC O
P). In VT52 mode, it will transmit ESC P.[2]

You can go into Setup and place the auxiliary keypad in numeric mode
rather than application mode. In this case, the zero key would transmit
"0".

If you need user-definable keys, you can get your host to transmit a
sequence (DECUDK) to the VT220 to define the codes sent by the SHIFTED
keys F6 to F20. Details of this are in Chapter 4 of the VT220 Programmer
Reference Manual[3].

[1] http://vt100.net/docs/vt320-uu/chapter5.html
[2] http://vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/table3-3.html
[3] http://vt100.net/docs/vt220-rm/chapter4.html#S4.15
Received on Wed Apr 04 2001 - 10:51:24 BST

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