SuperForth for the Tatung Einstein, showing a SuperForth 1.12 session defining a word
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Appendix IV - The Keyboard

The course names keys the way the Einstein does: ENTER, DEL, ESC, BREAK, GRAPH, F0. Where that key is depends on what you are sitting at.

On A Real Einstein

Press the key with that name on it. For a character, find it on the keys; if it is the upper of two on a key, hold SHIFT.

Wherever the course has a line beginning In MAME, it is not talking to you, and you can skip it.

In MAME

You are typing on a modern keyboard that is standing in for the Einstein's. MAME lays one over the other by position, not by what is printed on your keys. The letters and the digits land where you expect. These do not need thinking about either:

Einstein keyIn MAME, press
ENTERReturn
SHIFT, CTRL, TAB, ESC, CAPS LOCKthe key of the same name
SPACEthe space bar

These do:

Einstein keyIn MAME, press
DELBackspace
BREAKthe left Alt key - left Option on a Mac
GRAPHF8
F0 to F6F1 to F7: always one more than the Einstein's number
F7F8 - which is also GRAPH. Pressing it presses both, so the course never asks you for the Einstein's F7
the horizontal cursor keyTab; SHIFT and Tab for left
the vertical cursor keythe Down arrow; SHIFT and Down for up

And the punctuation, which Forth uses a great deal of:

For thisIn MAME, press
"SHIFT and 2
!SHIFT and 1
#SHIFT and 3
@SHIFT and 0
( and )SHIFT and 8, SHIFT and 9
:the ' key, to the right of ;
*SHIFT and that same ' key
;;
+SHIFT and ;
-SHIFT and =
==
< and >SHIFT and ,, SHIFT and .
. , /where you expect
[ and ]the Left and Right arrows, which are the Einstein's ← and → keys (see below)

The key with - printed on it gives an underscore. It is the one that catches everybody. Minus is SHIFT and =.

The positions are those of a British or American keyboard, which agree about every key in these tables. If yours is laid out differently, go by where the key is rather than by what is printed on it.

The Cursor Keys

The Einstein does not have four arrow keys. It has two grey cursor keys, side by side at the right-hand end of the QWERTY row, each marked with a double-headed arrow:

KeyOn its ownWith SHIFT
the horizontal cursor keycursor rightcursor left
the vertical cursor keycursor downcursor up

Three other keys have a single arrow printed on them, but they are ordinary character keys, and the arrow is the character they type: the Einstein draws [ as a left arrow, ] as a right arrow and ^ as an up arrow.

KeyWhere it isTypesWith SHIFT
← (marked ¼ and ←)end of the QWERTY row, next to the cursor keys[{
→ (marked ¾ and →)end of the ASDF row, next to ENTER]}
↑ (marked ÷ and ↑)the number row, between = and ½^~

In MAME the two cursor keys are on your Tab key and your Down arrow: Tab is right, Shift and Tab is left, Down is down, and Shift and Down is up. Your Left, Right and Up arrows are the three character keys: Left types [, Right types ] and Up types ^. That is why MAME users so often report that the Einstein's arrow keys type brackets and do not move the cursor. The keys under those three arrows are not the cursor keys.

At SuperForth and in its editor both cursor keys move the cursor: the horizontal key right and, with SHIFT, left; the vertical key down and, with SHIFT, up. The ← and → keys are the only way to type a square bracket. S10 has the editor's other keys.

Tatung's own manual describes the two cursor keys and the keyboard this way, and MAME's Einstein agrees with it. What the keys do in SuperForth was checked in MAME, not on a real Einstein. If you have one and it behaves differently, please let us know and this page will be corrected.

MAME's Own Keys

MAME has control keys of its own - Esc to quit, F3 to reset the machine, F5 to pause it. They would collide with keys the Einstein needs, so MAME starts with them switched off, and Esc, Tab and the function keys go to the Einstein.

One key switches them on. On a Mac it is forward delete, which on a laptop is Fn and Backspace. On Windows and Linux, MAME's documentation gives it as Scroll Lock.

Leave it alone. If it has been pressed, then the next time you press ESC to leave SuperForth's editor, MAME closes instead, and takes with it anything you had not written to the disc. Pressing the same key again hands the keyboard back to the Einstein.

To stop MAME on purpose, close its window - after DOS, or at least FLUSH, as S9 explains.

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