*      Working on making an Atari 8-bit useful at work!
..........
 *      Hell.. is there a basic routine to activate the
* keypad?

Well, activate.... no...  It's even easier.  Read on :-)

When using the CX85 keypad, you can read the values of the
joystick-port directly from BASIC.  I wrote a small "CX85.COM"
(keypad-test-util), and however it's written in assembly, I don't
expect problems when doing the same in BASIC.  To get the values, plug
the CX85 into the first joystick-port, and type the next line in BASIC
to get an idea of how to handle this device:

 10 PRINT STRIG(0), STICK(0), PADDLE(1):GOTO 10
 RUN

STRIG(0)=1, and will be 0 when any key pressed;
STICK(0) holds and keeps the value of the pressed key.  [ESC] and [ 0 ]
both have the value #12, but ESC changes the paddle-line, while 0
(zero) does not;
PADDLE(1)=1, and only changes (to #228) when pressing ESCAPE on keypad.

Possible values of STICK(0) are:

  [DEL]=#00
  [4] = #01
  [5] = #02
  [6] = #03
  [NO]=#04
  [7] = #05
  [8] = #06
  [9] = #07
  [YES]=#08
  [1] = #09
  [2] = #10
  [3] = #11
  [0] = #12
  [ESC]=#12  (+ paddle-line)
  [.] #13
  [ENT] #14
  [-] #15

You can just make a thing like:

10 GRAPHICS 0
20 IF PADDLE(1)>20 THEN GOTO 500
30 IF STRIG(0)=1 THEN GOTO 20
40 X=STICK(0)
50 IF X=12 THEN K=ASC("0")
60 IF X=09 THEN K=ASC("1")
70 IF X=11 THEN K=ASC("2")
etc...
300 PUT #0,K
310 GOTO 20
500 REM  Line where jumped to when ESC is pressed


Line:
20 =  check for ESC key, goto line 500 if pressed
30 = check trigger-line, loop to 20 if no key pressed, exit loop if key
is pressed
40 = key-value to X variable
50 etc, = table to place ASCII-value of the number in K variable
300 = place character on the screen
310 = loop back to read next key
500 = well, you can place "END" here to exit the program i.e.

I hope I used the right syntax.  I'm not that good in BASIC.  Assembly
would be much easier I think...


 Grtx, 
 Sysop Fox-1, Thunderdome, ATARI 8-Bit BBS, 
 Pro!-BBS Node #471  +31 416-279990    (21:00 => 8:00 CET)
 http://www.atari8bit.tmfweb.nl/