AltGr does not work in Turbo Pascal IDE in MS-DOS

[Turbo Pascal]

I have the problem, that AltGr keyboard button does not work correctly in Turbo Pascal IDE when using MS-DOS in VirtualBox.

For example, when I want to make curly brackets { }, dollars $ or other characters that requires to hold down the AltGr button at the same time, it just doesn't work.

But in the MS-DOS editor, AltGr works fine.

So I believe there is some problem in VirtualBox, but I have not found out what it could be. In other virtual machines, like MS Virtual PC I have not seen this problem, but I would like to use VirtualBox instead.

How do I add attachments to tickets? I already made ticket 17592 and I would like to attach my virtual machine there, but the file would be too big to be attached to the ticket.

[Turbo Pascal]

The problem is also in Borland Pascal and in other IDEs made by Borland, like Borland C++.

[mpack]

I actually don't remember the AltGr key existing in DOS days, but maybe that was just UK keyboards. Also, on my keyboard all of the characters you mention are obtained using a shift key, not AltGr. The latter was typically used to get non-ASCII characters.

Make sure you have the correct keyboard template loaded using the DOS "keyb" command.

p.s. Needless to say, we don't handle legacy Borland support here.

[erdeslawe]

I'm not sure that the behaviour of the ALTGR Key could be a VirtualBox problem/issue as it is/was entirely dictated by:

- The Country and Language of the Operating System; and/or
- any KeyBoard remapping of the key's standard use, which was normally discouraged because of the potential clashes with the intended purpose of the Key.

It is/was peculiar to 'European Language' Keyboards intended to provide direct access to specific graphical (and accented) characters (pre-Unicode); and was dependent on the language used (an ALternate GRaphic feature) producing different characters in different languages. There's a useful page on Wikipedia describing the specific Keyboard Maps for different Languages. English in its various forms (UK and International variants) had little use for the function so the Key was often not present on native keyboards. Those that did appear in the UK were European Keyboards with the simple alteration of the currency Key for each country.

I would be surprised if Borland Turbo Pascal made any specific use of ALTGR out of the Box, given that native US Keyboards had no ALTGR Key; and that was its prime marketplace.

[Turbo Pascal]

I'm not sure how VirtualBox reads the AltGr key, but changing keyboard language in AUTOEXEC.BAT etc doesn't help anything. Sometimes the AltGr key gets "stuck" so I believe there is some problem in VirtualBox. Other virtual machines (e.g. VMWare Player) does not have this problem, but there are other problems with them. Google also finds a lot of different AltGr problems related to another operating systems than DOS, so I don't believe this is a Borland only problem.

On another website is also described this same problem (not in English):

prog.hu/tudastar/181555/virtualbox-borland-pascal-altgr-nem-mukodik

[socratis]

Take a look at the thread "Call for testers: AltGr on Windows hosts". It's rather old, the link is long dead, but at least you can read the thinking behind it. Please don't post there, that thread is long dead.

Let's see if any of the developers has anything to say about the state of AltGr...

[Martin]

Just to verify: You don't have the VirtualBox Home key set to the right Alt/AltGr key?

[Turbo Pascal]

Host key is set it to left Windows key.

But I just noticed something when testing. First I made the following simple test program, compiled it and ran it:

Code: Select all

var b: byte;
begin
repeat
b := port[$60];
writeln(b);
until b = 1;
end.

This program reads the keyboard port and quits when ESC key is pressed.

Tested this on VMWare player, VirtualBox and on real hardware with MS-DOS.

The output values were 56 and 224 on VMWare Player and on real hardware. But on VirtualBox, the output value is constantly 56 when reading the keyboard, so there is some difference in VirtualBox compared to others.