compose.md

The Compose key on the DEC LK-201, LK-401 keyboards is pressed sequentially with two other keys to input Latin-1 characters such as £ (ComposeL-) and ¶(ComposeP!).

It cannot be used while held down as Meta.

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Newsgroups: comp.sys.dec Path: cs.utk.edu!stc06.CTD.ORNL.GOV!fnnews.fnal.gov!uwm.edu !math.ohio-state.edu!howland.reston.ans.net!agate!news.Stanford.EDU !unixhub!sldb6.slac.stanford.edu!fairfield Message-ID: 1995Feb19.230712.1@sldb6.slac.stanford.edu Sender: news@unixhub.SLAC.Stanford.EDU Organization: Stanford Linear Accelerator Center References: 3i2qnj$83p@cpcw16.uea.ac.uk Date: Mon, 20 Feb 1995 07:07:12 GMT From: fairfield@sldb6.slac.stanford.edu Subject: Re: Compose key on DEC LK401 keyboard on an Alpha 3000

In article 3i2qnj$83p@cpcw16.uea.ac.uk, zebra@cpcw16.uea.ac.uk (Julii Brainard#) writes:

I know that people have posted messages about this before, and I have even saved a few, but there seems to be no authoritative guide for how to use the compose key on an Alpha 3000 with an LK401 keyboard to create all of those weird and wacky symbols and characters -- just a few of which may be useful in my work. [...]

    I haven't seen this topic come up very often and it's not in any
FAQ (that I know of).  The fact  is, it seems very difficult to find
this  information; usually, I expect, it's in the User's manual that
_may_ have come with the hardware (terminal), but it's  not  in  the
VMS user's manuals, or even the I/O Reference Guide, etc.  Note that
the  compose  sequences  are  common  to  all  VTxxx  terminals (and
DECterms) from the VT200_Series on  up.   [I  guess that means LK201
and LK401 keyboards, etc.]

    I _finally_ found the  compose  sequences in the Bookreader docs
for  VXT1200  X-terminals, Table 15-4.  I've reformatted the  table,
and omitted some  of  the  compose  sequences  for  characters  that
normally appear on a US keyboard (e.g., <COMPOSE> + + for the number
sign,  #).   Also,  I've omitted the dozen or so characters that you
can only access if you're using  the  ISO Latin 1 character set; the
sequences  I've listed are for the DEC Multinational character  set,
although most of these are also available in ISO Latin 1.

    -Ken

-- Kenneth H. Fairfield | Internet: Fairfield@Slac.Stanford.Edu SLAC, P.O.Box 4349, MS 98 | DECnet: 45537::FAIRFIELD (45537=SLACVX) Stanford, CA 94309 | Voice: 415-926-2924 FAX: 415-926-4335

These opinions are mine, not SLAC's, Stanford's, nor the DOE's...

=============================================================================== Note: Most sequences can also typed in reverse order, but a few must be typed in the order given.

Character	Name	Compose Sequence		Character	Name	Compose Sequence
«	opening angle brackets	<<		»	closing angle brakets	>>
¡	inverted !	!!		°	degree sign	0^
¿	inverted ?	??		¹	superscript 1	1^
¢	cent sign	C/ or C|		²	superscript 2	2^
₤	pound sign	L- or L=		³	superscript 3	3^
¥	yen sign	Y- or Y=		·	middle dot	.^
§	section sign	SO or S!		¼	fraction one-quarter	14
¤	currency sign	XO		½	fraction one-half	12
©	copyright sign	CO		±	plus or minus sign	+-
ª	feminine ordinal	A_		µ	micro sign	/u
º	masculine ordinal	O_		¶	paragraph sign	P!
				ß	German small sharp s	ss
À	A grave	`A		à	a grave	`a
Á	A acute	'A		á	a acute	'a
Â	A circumflex	^A		â	a circumflex	^a
Ã	A tilde	~A		ã	a tilde	~a
Ä	A umlaut	"A		ä	a umlaut	"a
Å	A ring	*A		å	a ring	*a
Æ	A E diphthong	AE		æ	a E diphthong	ae
Ç	C cedilla	C,		ç	c cedilla	c,
È	E grave	`E		è	e grave	`e
É	E acute	'E		é	e acute	'e
Ê	E circumflex	^E		ê	e circumflex	^e
Ë	E umlaut	"E		ë	e umlaut	"e
Ì	I grave	`I		ì	i grave	`i
Í	I acute	'I		í	i acute	'i
Î	I circumflex	^I		î	i circumflex	^i
Ï	I umlaut	"I		ï	i umlaut	"i
Ñ	N tilde	~N		ñ	n tilde	~n
Ò	O grave	`O		ò	o grave	`o
Ó	O acute	'O		ó	o acute	'o
Ô	O circumflex	^O		ô	o circumflex	^o
Õ	O tilde	~O		õ	o tilde	~o
Ö	O umlaut	"O		ö	o umlaut	"o
Œ	O E diphthong	OE		œ	o E diphthong	oe
Ø	O slash	O/		ø	o slash	o/
Ù	U grave	`U		ù	u grave	`u
Ú	U acute	'U		ú	u acute	'u
Û	U circumflex	^U		û	u circumflex	^u
Ü	U umlaut	"U		ü	u umlaut	"u
Ÿ	Y umlaut	"Y		ÿ	Y umlaut	"y

X11 compose is very similar

X11 uses (almost) a superset of the compose key sequences on the VT340. To use it, one just needs to assign a key to be "Compose" (e.g., setxkbmap -option compose:rctrl). See the file /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/Compose for the all possible sequences.

Exceptions:

feminine and masculine ordinals

In X11, _a is ā, _o is ō. Instead use ^_a and ^_o for ª and º

Degree and superscript zero

In X11, ^0 is superscript zero, use oo for degree.

But what about these?

These Latin-1 characters work in X11 (see: /usr/share/X11/locale/en_US.UTF-8/compose) but are not listed in Shufford's DEC keyboard FAQ.

DEC	HEX	OCT	CHARACTER	NAME	X11 Compose
160	a0	240		Non-breakable space	spacespace
166	a6	246	¦	Broken bar	!^
168	a8	250	¨	Diaeresis	""
172	ac	254	¬	Not	-,
173	ad	255	­	Soft hyphen	--space
175	af	257	¯	Macron	^-
180	b4	264	´	Acute accent	''
208	d0	320	Ð	Icelandic Eth	~D
215	d7	327	×	Multiply	xx
221	dd	335	Ý	Y-acute	'Y
222	de	336	Þ	Icelandic Thorn	~T
240	f0	360	ð	Icelandic eth	~d
247	f7	367	÷	Divide	-:
253	fd	375	ý	y-acute	'y
254	fe	376	þ	Icelandic thorn	~t

Double check these

These additional sequences work in X11 as aliases. Do they also work on the VT340?

character	Name	Compose
°	Degree	oo
µ	Micro	mu

Does Capital Y Umlaut compose sequences actually work?

The FAQ says "Y shows Y umlaut, but does it really? I thought only lowercase ÿ was in Latin-1, not Ÿ. Is it part of the DEC Multilingual Character Set (MCS)? Even if it shows up on the VT340 correctly, is its character code actually something else (e.g., 0xFD is y acute in Latin-1).