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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: insaneirish on Sun, 17 April 2011, 18:52:19

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: insaneirish on Sun, 17 April 2011, 18:52:19

Hey all. Just bought my first 'real' keyboard (a Filco).

One thing that drives me absolutely crazy is having the Caps Lock key actually be Caps Lock. I spent quite a lot of time using keyboards where the Ctrl key is where Caps Lock is now on most keyboards.

Sometimes you can swap these via software and everything works a charm. However, at work, we use thin clients that connect back to our actual desktops in a data center. The thin client intercepts the keystroke too early on in the process to remap the Caps Lock key to Ctrl.

So, I'm thinking about a hard hack. Does anyone think it's feasible to unsolder the Caps Lock switch from the PCB and re-connect it to the pins for Ctrl? This would solve all my problems.

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: alaricljs on Sun, 17 April 2011, 20:01:03

Have you tried AutoHotKey?  Unless your thin client is using DirectInput there is no reason for AutoHotKey not to work.

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: mattdurham on Sun, 17 April 2011, 21:08:55

What OS are you operating under? Also what sort of OS are you connecting to? I have had some trouble in RDPing from OSX into a Win7 box and then accessing a XP VMWare instance. But other than that specific and fubar example I have had good look under a variety of platforms.

mattdurham

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: Lanx on Sun, 17 April 2011, 21:30:39

hard hack it!

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: n19htmare on Sun, 17 April 2011, 22:25:44

Quote from: ripster;332500

Scrape the traces and spaghetti wire it.

Pictures of how to open Filco and what's inside are here. (http://geekhack.org/showwiki.php?title=Island:6342)

For future reference when I say "are here" that means there is an invisible link there.  This is not a sophisticated troll.

Mind Reader....

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: Chobopants on Sun, 17 April 2011, 23:30:41

I love the new theme jokes, it brings some levity to the theme downgrade. :)

Also, re: the topic...

On OS X and Linux you can very easily remap the keys. I haven't done it yet in Windows because it's a bit goofier and less integrated to the OS.

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: daerid on Mon, 18 April 2011, 00:53:10

You can do it with Registry Hacking. However, I find KeyTweak (http://webpages.charter.net/krumsick/KeyTweak_install.exe) to be much easier for performing semi-hard key remapping

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: Tony on Mon, 18 April 2011, 04:18:21

Autohotkey usually works, have you tried it?

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: insaneirish on Mon, 18 April 2011, 19:29:33

Thanks all for the AutoHotkey suggestion. While registry remaps did *not* work, AutoHotkey did! No hard hack needed.

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: alaricljs on Mon, 18 April 2011, 20:10:15

Quote from: ripster;333089

Great!  Thin clients are the future.

Or is it cloud computing?

Never can remember.

Thin clients accessing a cloud of boobs.

Title: Bought a Filco... Thinking about converting Caps Lock to Ctrl
Post by: insaneirish on Mon, 18 April 2011, 20:16:33

Quote from: ripster;333089

Great!  Thin clients are the future.

Or is it cloud computing?

Never can remember.

 
What's old is new again. I don't enjoy using Windows, but the thin client works well enough. I travel frequently between buildings in NYC and being able to pick up my desktop right where I left it is nice.

That said, I had the same ability 8 years ago on a Sun Ray terminal (which is where I picked up my habit of expecting the Ctrl key next to the A).