From: steven.douglas@sympaticnospamo.ca   
      
   "James Harris"  wrote in message   
   news:p3guas$7vd$1@dont-email.me...   
   > On 12/01/2018 22:56, James Harris wrote:   
   >> On 11/01/2018 16:04, Jim_64 wrote:   
   >   
   > ...   
   >   
   >>> But, please try the alcohol cleaning again first.  It really should   
   >>> work.  You could also move some contact around to see if the issues   
   >>> follow the contacts or there is some issue with the PCB/cabling.   
   >>   
   >> Again, that's good advice. I have cleaned them a few times with the   
   >> isopropyl alcohol and some more keys are working. There is no great   
   >> staining coming off on to the cotton buds but I guess there could be   
   >> enough which has built up over time.   
   >>   
   >> They are not all working yet but I'll keep at it - at least until the   
   >> new pads arrive.   
   >   
   > Success! I have a working Pet. Lots and lots of rubbing the black pads   
   > with a cotton bud dipped in isopropyl alcohol did it.   
   >   
   > This must be the first time I have used a Pet in decades and it's a really   
   > strange nostalgic experience. For example:   
   >   
   > I'd forgotten how one has to make space to insert characters but I   
   > remember how cursor movement characters show up if too many spaces are   
   > inserted - similar to the effect of typing an odd number of double quotes   
   > on a line.   
   >   
   > It was really weird that keyboard shortcuts like typing L shift I as a   
   > shortcut for LIST came back to me immediately as if it was more a muscle   
   > memory that a mental one.   
   >   
   > I remembered Pets being ready as soon as the phosphor glowed but I'd   
   > forgotten how slow they are in Basic; characters appear on the screen as   
   > if they were coming over a modem! When I was of school age a friend and I   
   > wrote some machine code and were blown away with how fast it was compared   
   > with the Basic programming we were used to. Speaking of which, I remember,   
   > with regret, the absence of a repeat key and writing a machine code   
   > routine to try to provide autorepeat - unsuccessfully, IIRC.   
   >   
   > I took a look at the character set and I'd forgotten that some Pets - like   
   > this one - had no lower case. IIRC later Pets did but I'm not sure what   
   > they did with the graphics characters which they presumably displaced to   
   > make the lower case chars available.   
   >   
   > Anyway, just a few reminiscences. This has transported me back to many,   
   > many years ago!   
   >   
   >   
   > --   
   > James Harris   
   >   
      
   All Pets have lower case. You have a choice between upper-case/graphics or   
   upper-case/lower-case (graphics retained on the non-alpha keys). I can't   
   remember what the pokes were to change the character set.   
      
   With the earlier Pets you would have to use the shift key to get lower-case.   
      
   Steve   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)