redhat man page for setkeycodes

SETKEYCODES(8)							 Keyboard Support						    SETKEYCODES(8)

NAME
       setkeycodes - load kernel scancode-to-keycode mapping table entries

SYNOPSIS
       setkeycodes scancode keycode ...

DESCRIPTION
       The  setkeycodes  command  reads  its arguments two at a time, each pair of arguments consisting of a scancode (given in hexadecimal) and a
       keycode (given in decimal). For each such pair, it tells the kernel keyboard driver to map the specified scancode to the specified keycode.

       This command is useful only for people with slightly unusual keyboards, that have a few keys which produce scancodes that the  kernel  does
       not recognize.

THEORY
       The  usual  PC  keyboard  produces  a  series  of  scancodes  for  each	key press and key release. (Scancodes are shown by showkey -s, see
       showkey(1).)  The kernel parses this stream of scancodes, and converts it to a stream of keycodes (key  press/release  events).	 (Keycodes
       are  shown  by showkey.)  Apart from a few scancodes with special meaning, and apart from the sequence produced by the Pause key, and apart
       from shiftstate related scancodes, and apart from the key up/down bit, the stream of scancodes consists of unescaped scancodes xx (7  bits)
       and  escaped scancodes e0 xx (8+7 bits).  It is hardwired in the current kernel that in the range 1-88 (0x01-0x58) keycode equals scancode.
       For the remaining scancodes (0x59-0x7f) or scancode pairs (0xe0 0x00 - 0xe0 0x7f) a corresponding keycode can be  assigned  (in	the  range
       1-127).	For example, if you have a Macro key that produces e0 6f according to showkey(1), the command
	      setkeycodes e06f 112
       will assign the keycode 112 to it, and then loadkeys(1) can be used to define the function of this key.

OPTIONS
       None.

BUGS
       The keycodes of X have nothing to do with those of Linux.  Unusual keys can be made visible under Linux, but not under X.

SEE ALSO
       dumpkeys (1), loadkeys (1), showkey (1), getkeycodes (8)

Local								    8 Nov 1994							    SETKEYCODES(8)