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Brazilian MSX Keyboard


http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/MSX

The Brazilian MSX keyboard is used in the generic MSX Brazilian, MSX2 Brazilian and MSX2 + Brazilian machines.

Here's the list of the concerned specific machines :

- MSX machines : Gradiente Expert 1.1 / Gradiente Expert 1.3 / Gradiente Expert DDPlus / Gradiente Expert Plus

- MSX2 machines : Gradiente Expert 2.0

- MSX2+ machines : Ciel Expert 3 IDE / Ciel Expert 3 Turbo / Gradiente Expert AC88+ / Gradiente Expert DDX+

The following Brazilian machines use a different keyboard matrix (* = this machine is without numeric keypad) ; the differences are minor for the Gradiente Expert 1.0, but in the case of the Sharp machines, many characters are not present or can be found at another place.

- MSX machines : Gradiente Expert 1.0 / Sharp Epcom HotBit 1.1 (*) / Sharp Epcom HotBit 1.2 (*) / Sharp Epcom HotBit 1.3b (*) / Sharp Epcom HotBit 1.3p (*)

- MSX2 machines : Sharp Epcom HotBit 2.0 (*)

The MSX keyboard is very similar to a standard PC keyboard. The typewrite keys are almost the same as well as the numeric keypad. The Caps key toggles bigger sized alphabet characters.

The MSX keyboard has five physical function keys. To access function key 6 to 10, you need to hold down the SHIFT key and press one of the keys F1 to F5.

As some MSX keys don't exist on a PC keyboard, the emulator makes also some adjustements to support the complete MSX keyboard :
- the PC key before the "1" key is used for emulate the key after "L" on the third row
- the extrem right PC key on the third row is used to emulate the extrem right MSX key on the first row

Specific MSX keys are mapped to the following PC keyboard keys :

MSX key   PC key    
         
Select   End   Used in some games and applications (it's also the case of the Esc key).
Stop   Page Up   Allows to pause and resume a task in the MSX-BASIC or MSX-DOS environment. When you press this key while holding the Ctrl key, the current task will be abruptly broken.
Clr Home   Home   Allows to move the cursor to the top left of the screen. If you press Shift + Clr Home, the screen will be cleared.
Graph   Left Alt   Gives graphical characters by pressing it with a normal character. Can be combined with Shift.
Code   Right Alt   Gives special or accented characters by pressing it with a normal character. Can be combined with Shift.
Comma on numpad   Page Down    
Slash   Right Ctrl   Allows to write the Slash character (/). Combined with Shift, it gives the Question Mark character (?).

You can put accent marks on characters by pressing a key combination followed by an alphabet character :
- Key to the right of P or Code + / : accent acute (´). Example : á.
- Shift + key to the right of P or Shift + Code + /: accent grave (`). Example : à.
- Key to the right of L (ç for Sharp machines) : tilde (~). Example : ã.
- Shift + key to the right of L (ç for Sharp machines) : accent circumflex (^). Example : â.

The tables underneath show you how to generate special characters with key-combinations of your PC keyboard :

Normal mode   Normal mode + Shift
 
Normal mode (Sharp)   Normal mode + Shift (Sharp)
 
Code   Code + Shift
 
Code (Sharp)   Code + Shift (Sharp)
 
Graph   Graph + Shift
 
Graph (Sharp)   Graph + Shift (Sharp)
 

The extrem right character of the fourth row can be typed by using the RightCtrl key (+ eventually Shift).


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