Great Hierophant
Veteran Member
One of the few things I dislike about the keyboards for the Apple //e is their arrow key arrangement. It goes left, right up, down. It is probably because I grew up with a PC and its Inverted-T arrangement that I dislike the Apple //e (and //c and //gs) arrangement.
You can easily use a keycap puller and physically rearrange the keys so that the Up key replaces the /? key, the Down Key goes where the Right key was, the Right key goes where the Down key was and the /? goes where the Up key was. But while that may look the part, it will not act the part.
The Apple //e keyboard sends a scancode for every key pressed. Which single byte scancode a key sends is determined by an entry (actually four entries) in the Keyboard Decoder ROM. When a key is pressed, the keyboard decoder activates the address lines for one memory location in the ROM and puts the data value for that address onto the data bus so the CPU can read it.
The Keyboard Decoder ROM uses a standard EPROM socket, so you can burn your own 2KiB Keyboard Decoder ROM using a standard 2716 EPROM. You find the entries corresponding to the physical key position you want to modify and have at it. Jim Sather's Understanding the Apple //e is highly helpful here.
Actually, if you have a numeric keypad, you do not need to rearrange keys. You can alter the Keyboard Decorder ROM to let the numbers on the keypad simply act as arrow keys depending on the position of the Caps Lock switch or a user-soldered toggle switch. The //e numeric keypad on the //e Platinum works the same way as the numeric keypad upgrades for the //e and Enhanced //e, so this advice applies to all official numeric keypad options. Alternatively you can give the numeric keypad the IBM PC layout where 8, 2, 4 and 6 correspond to Up, Down, Left and Right. Or do whatever you want.
You can easily use a keycap puller and physically rearrange the keys so that the Up key replaces the /? key, the Down Key goes where the Right key was, the Right key goes where the Down key was and the /? goes where the Up key was. But while that may look the part, it will not act the part.
The Apple //e keyboard sends a scancode for every key pressed. Which single byte scancode a key sends is determined by an entry (actually four entries) in the Keyboard Decoder ROM. When a key is pressed, the keyboard decoder activates the address lines for one memory location in the ROM and puts the data value for that address onto the data bus so the CPU can read it.
The Keyboard Decoder ROM uses a standard EPROM socket, so you can burn your own 2KiB Keyboard Decoder ROM using a standard 2716 EPROM. You find the entries corresponding to the physical key position you want to modify and have at it. Jim Sather's Understanding the Apple //e is highly helpful here.
Actually, if you have a numeric keypad, you do not need to rearrange keys. You can alter the Keyboard Decorder ROM to let the numbers on the keypad simply act as arrow keys depending on the position of the Caps Lock switch or a user-soldered toggle switch. The //e numeric keypad on the //e Platinum works the same way as the numeric keypad upgrades for the //e and Enhanced //e, so this advice applies to all official numeric keypad options. Alternatively you can give the numeric keypad the IBM PC layout where 8, 2, 4 and 6 correspond to Up, Down, Left and Right. Or do whatever you want.