Because UniCOMAL is a DOS and OS/2 development system, it expects to find a DOS environment already set up in the computer it is being installed on. This worked fine in the days of DOS and Windows 3.1x, because the national settings for keyboards and character sets would usually be properly set up before installing UniCOMAL.
Nowadays, however, most UniCOMAL users install the language to a Windows 95, 98 or NT-type operating system. Usually, in this case, the national settings are fine in the Windows environment, but sometimes they're NOT properly set on the DOS side - instead of having an UK keyboard layout, the computer defaults to the USA layout instead, for example. This can happen on school network, especially if users' access to DOS is partly restricted. Also, most new Windows users aren't familiar with what needs to be done to their system to get the DOS national settings right.
You'll know if your keyboard is wrongly set, because you'll get '@' on the UniCOMAL screen when you press the 'double quotes' (") key, and the other way round. Also, '#' and '£' are mixed up, and there are many other annoyances. This can be particularly confusing for younger school students.
You need to tell your computer various things about your national settings, including what keyboard you're using and which character set you plan to use with it. You need to make sure that your computer applies these national settings when it starts up. The exact way you do this depends on which version of windows you have in your computer.
What needs to be done
The national settings are stored in two files which the computer will run when it starts up. These files are called CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT. CONFIG.SYS gets run first, then AUTOEXEC.BAT. The two files are stored in the root directory of your boot drive. That is usually the directory 'C:\'. You need to put two lines into the C:\CONFIG.SYS file, as follows:
device=C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\DISPLAY.SYS CON=(ega,,1)
country=044,850,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\COUNTRY.SYS
Together, these two lines set up the DOS environment to use the characters of Code page 850 (see the UniCOMAL interactive help screen "UniComal Reference - Keys - Box" for more on this) with an United Kingdom standard keyboard (the international dialling code for the UK is 044).
Once CONFIG.SYS has set up the proper conditions, they are prepared for use by AUTOEXEC.BAT. These lines need to be present in the AUTOEXEC.BAT file:
mode con codepage prepare=((850) C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\ega.cpi)
mode con codepage select=850
keyb uk,,C:\WINDOWS\COMMAND\keyboard.sys
You need to be careful to get these lines exactly correct, with the right numbers of spaces, commas and brackets, or they won't work.
Windows 95
In Windows 95, you have to do it by hand. You start a text editor like Notepad, you do 'File - Open' with the filename C:\CONFIG.SYS, you type the lines in at the end of whatever's already there, then you do 'File - Save' to save the changes. Then when you next boot the system, the keyboard should be properly set to UK national settings.
Windows 98
There is a small utility program in Windows 98 to make tis process a bit easier. It's called MSCONFIG. You get it by doing 'Start - Run - MSCONFIG'. Here it is in action:
You type the required lines in on the proper tabs on this program, then click the 'OK' button. The next time you boot, the settings should be as you want them.
Windows ME
Windows ME does not run, or 'parse', the CONFIG.SYS and AUTOEXEC.BAT files - if they are there, they just get ignored. Instead, you have to use the MSCONFIG utility as above, although the utility is different, and more helpful. There's a full description on the page winme.html.
Posted 10 June 2001