Re: [PATCH v5] Emulate dip switch language layout settings on SUN keyboard

From: "Daniel P. Berrangé" <berrange@redhat.com>
To: Henrik Carlqvist <hc981@poolhem.se>
Cc: mark.cave-ayland@ilande.co.uk, hc1245@poolhem.se, qemu-devel@nongnu.org
Subject: Re: [PATCH v5] Emulate dip switch language layout settings on SUN keyboard
Date: Tue, 28 Mar 2023 15:01:55 +0100	[thread overview]
Message-ID: <ZCLzUyiDeKLfQqWT@redhat.com> (raw)
In-Reply-To: <20230304220754.0c6ae562.hc981@poolhem.se>

On Sat, Mar 04, 2023 at 10:07:54PM +0100, Henrik Carlqvist wrote:
> On Wed, 1 Mar 2023 11:52:42 +0000
> Mark Cave-Ayland <mark.cave-ayland@ilande.co.uk> wrote:
> > Another aspect to consider is whether keyboard_layout should just use
> > standard strings, in which case it may not make sense to accept numeric hex
> > values. 
> 
> I agree that those standard strings will make most sense to most people.
> 
> However, as the choices of valid keyboard layouts are limited by the 64 values
> allowed by the 6 bits on the dip switch I initially did choose to also truly
> emulate the dip switch value as decimal or hexadecimal number to the -k
> option. It might also be worth noting that the sun keyboard layouts have
> multiple dip switch settings for a single language, probably with some minor
> differences in keyboard layout or keyboard type. So both value 8 and 40 (0x28)
> will give some norwegian keyboard layout. if someone, for some reason, would
> want to emulate for example one of the four possible US keyboard layouts (0x0,
> 0x1, 0x21 or 0x22) it would be harder to do without being able to give those
> numerical values to the -k switch.

This is another reason why use of the '-k' switch is a bad idea. Its
range of permissible values / vocabulary does not match the range of
values / vocabulary needed for this hardware device.

In https://docs.oracle.com/cd/E19683-01/806-6642/new-43/index.html
the keyboard layouts have distinct names

"Norway4" vs "Norway5" and "US4" vs  "US5" vs "US_UNIX5"

I'd suggest a property to the escc device should take the names
given by that reference page above. eg

  -global escc.sunkbd_layout=Norway4

the only ambguity I see is that 0x0 and 0x1 both have the same
name (US4), which could be resolved by handling 0x0 as the default
with an empty string perhaps.

With regards,
Daniel
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