CTRL2CAPS
Ctrl / Caps-Lock Key Swapper
As of: Kermit 95 2.0
PC users who are accustomed to terminal keyboards often want the PC keyboard
to have the Ctrl key where the Caps Lock key is, and Esc where Accent Grave
is. CTRL2CAPS.VXD can take care of this for you in Windows 95, 98,
or ME (but not NT, 2000, or XP), but you should know there are alternatives,
including:
- IBM-like keyboards from
Unicomp,
Avant,
LinuXcare,
and elsewhere that specialize in swapping Ctrl and Caps Lock, Esc and
Grave/Tilde, and in some cases allowing for user customizations. The
advantage of doing it in the keyboard itself rather than in the software means
you don't have to change the software every time you upgrade or switch
operating systems.
- Digital Part number LK-461-A2 from Digital Parts Source 1-800-225-5385,
$75.00 USD: a PC-compatible version of the DEC VT 220/320/420/520 keyboard
that has 20 function keys and Ctrl left of the 'A'. (Digital Equipment
Corporation has since been bought by Compaq Computer Corporation, which was
then bought by Hewlett Packard; it is not known if they still sell this part,
but a search of the Compaq website in early 2002 for "LK-461" turned up 60
references.)
- Look in your Control Panel -- it might include options for key swapping.
CTRL2CAPS
CTRL2CAPS.VXD is device driver that swaps the Caps Lock and left Ctrl
keys on the PC keyboard in Windows 95/98/ME, for use by those who prefer to
have the Control key just left of the A key, rather than its present placement
on PC keyboards, which is not handy for touch typists. (See the URL at the
bottom of this file for a Windows NT version, as well as other utilities for
Windows 95 and NT.)
Previous versions of CTRL2CAP removed the Caps Lock function from the
keyboard completely. The version that is included with Kermit 1.1.17 and
later puts the Caps Lock function on the left Ctrl key (a) in case you want
to use it, and (b) so there will be no conflict with PCTERM keyboard mode,
which also was added in K95 1.1.17, and which needs a Caps Lock key.
INSTALLATION
Use a text editor to add a couple lines to your SYSTEM.INI file (in Windows
95/98 this is in the C:\WINDOWS directory). First, to enable
CTRl2CAP, put:
DEVICE=path/CTRL2CAP.VXD
in the [Enhanced] (or [386enh]) section, where path is the KEYMAPS
subdirectory of your Kermit 95 directory. Note: We recommend you use the
copy in the Kermit 95 KEYMAPS directory, since this is the one that it
patched automatically (in case corrections are needed) when new releases of
K95 are installed. If you copy CTRL2CAP.VXD to another directory and
refer to the copy in SYSTEM.INI, then if a patch is later applied to
the copy in your K95\KEYMAPS directory, it will not be reflected in
the version you are actually running.
Second: CTRL2CAP also allows Escape/Accent-Grave switching. If you want
these keys swapped, also put:
[Ctrl2cap]
Escape=TRUE
in the SYSTEM.INI file.
CREDITS
CTRL2CAP was written and contributed by:
Dr. Mark Russinovich
Department of Computer and Information Science
University of Oregon
Eugene OR 97403
USA
Email: [email protected]
Web: http://www.sysinternals.com/
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