Re: keyboard response

[moon@cambridge.apple.com (David A. Moon)]

> Date: Thu, 25 Jun 1992 11:51+0200
> From: Vincent Keunen <scosysv!keunen@nrbmi2.ia.nrb.be>
> 
> I use a MacIvory model 3 on a Mac IIci with system 7.0.1 plus tuneup
> (french system) and a symbolics keyboard (h-s-m-c-sh-stuff).  
> 
> My keyboard doesn't always respond well to my typing.  A few times a
> day, caracters get lost although I am *not* the fastest typer in the
> east...  Sometimes also, one character gets duplicated some 20 times
> like thiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiis (even though I don't type c-u;
> however, i do a (setf si:*kbd-auto-repeat-enabled-p* t) in my
> lispm-init).  This seems to happen when the mac is pretty busy (other
> ivory tasks or mac tasks like PrintMonitor).
> 
> Is there a way to change this?

The keyboard input is being lost entirely inside the Macintosh, in low levels 
of its software.  This happens on non-MacIvory Macintoshes also, e.g. when the 
network is very slow.  You can increase the buffer size by illegally modifying 
a number in the Macintosh boot block.  I once wrote a program to do this and 
maybe somebody else on the SLUG list still has it.

I assume the auto-repeat runaway occurs when the lost key transition is an 
up-transition instead of a down-transition.