May 21, 2008

### NAME

pckbd - PC keyboard driver for wscons

### SYNOPSIS

pckbc* at isa? pckbd* at pckbc? wskbd* at pckbd? console ? options PCKBD_LAYOUT=XXX

### DESCRIPTION

This driver supports PC/AT keyboards within the wscons(4) console framework. It doesn't provide direct device driver entry points but makes its functions available via the internal wskbd(4) interface.

The pckbd driver supports a number of different key mappings which can be chosen from with the kernel option ```PCKBD_LAYOUT` at compile time or with the utility wsconsctl(8) (variable: ``encoding'') at runtime. Other mappings can be used if the whole keymap is replaced by means of wsconsctl(8). The builtin mappings are at this time:

option | wsconsctl | language
```KB_US` | `us` | `English/US` `keyboard` `mapping``(default)`
```KB_DE` | `de` | `German` `with` ``dead accents''
```KB_FR` | `fr` | `French`
```KB_DK` | `dk` | `Danish` `with` ``dead accents''
```KB_IT` | `it` | `Italian`
```KB_UK` | `uk` | `British`
```KB_JP` | `jp` | `Japanese`
```KB_SV` | `sv` | `Swedish` `with` ``dead accents''
```KB_US|KB_DECLK` | `us.declk` | `English/US` `mapping` `for` DEC
|  | LK400-style keyboards with PC keyboard
|  | interface (e.g., LK461)
```KB_US|KB_DVORAK` | `us.dvorak` | `English/US` `keyboard` `with`
|  | Dvorak``.blm Pp layout ''
```KB_US|KB_COLEMAK` | `us.colemak` | `English/US` `keyboard` `with`
|  | Colemak``.blm Pp layout ''
```KB_NO` | `no` | `Norwegian` `with` ``dead accents''
```KB_PT` | `pt` | `Portuguese`
```KB_ES` | `es` | `Spanish`

The ```KB_DE`, ```KB_DK`, ```KB_NO` and ```KB_SV` mappings can be used in the ```KB_NODEAD`( ``.nodead'') variant. This switches off the ``dead accents''.

The ```KB_US`, ```KB_JP` and ```KB_US|KB_DVORAK` mappings can be modified to swap the left CTRL and the CAPS LOCK keys by the ```KB_SWAPCTRLCAPS` variant bit or the ``.swapctrlcaps'' suffix.

The ```KB_METAESC`( ``.metaesc'') option can be applied to any layout. If set, keys pressed together with the ALT modifier are prefixed by an ESC character. (Standard behaviour is to add 128 to the ASCII value.)

Because PC keyboard hardware doesn't contain a beeper, requests for ``keyboard beeps'' cannot be handled directly. On alpha and i386 a helper device attached to the pcppi(4) driver allows the use of the standard ISA speaker for this purpose. On acorn32, vidcaudio(4) performs this function.

### EXAMPLES

To set a German keyboard layout without ``dead accents'' and sending an ESC character before the key symbol if the ALT key is pressed simultaneously, use wsconsctl -w encoding=de.nodead.metaesc. To set it at kernel build time, add options PCKBD_LAYOUT="(KB_DE | KB_NODEAD | KB_METAESC)"
to the kernel configuration file.

### SEE ALSO

isa(4), pcppi(4), wskbd(4), wsconsctl(8)

### BUGS

The list of builtin mappings doesn't follow any logic. It grew as people submitted what they needed.