Atari ST series Technical Reference Manual page 40

default setting works out to (2 * 30 / 60), or a blink every sec­
ond. Settings lower than 30 make the cursor blink faster. At
a setting of 1, it's just a blur. Higher settings make it blink
more slowly. A setting of 0 is not the fastest setting, but the
slowest (it represents 256). When you used mode number 5,
the current blink-rate value is returned in the low byte of the
rate variable. None of the other modes return any useful val­
ues in rate.
There is also a function that allows you to configure the
keyboard portion of the console device. The ST console key­
board has a typeamatic feature that repeats the input if you hold
down one of the keys for a moment. The delay before a key
starts repeating, and the rate at which it repeats can be set
with a call to the Kbrate() function in the following format:
int oldvals, delay, rate;
oldvals = Kbrate(delay, rate);
where delay is the amount of time you must initially hold
down a key before it starts to repeat, and rate is the time that
elapses between each repetition. These times are measured
in ticks of the system clock (200 milliseconds). Although each
is a 16-bit value, only the low byte is used. As with the cur­
sor speed setting, a rate of 0 represents the maximum delay
between repeats, not the minimum. The default values set by
the system are a delay of 17 and a repeat of 3. This means
that you must hold down a key for 0.34 seconds before it
starts to repeat; from then on the character will repeat every
0.12 seconds as long as you hold down the key.
A value of - 1 for either delay or rate means that you
wish that setting to remain as it is. For example, the call
Kbrate(30, - 1 ) changes the delay to 30, but leaves the repeat
rate as it is. Note, however, that in the current (preblitter)
version of the Operating System, a — 1 in delay causes the
rate to stay the same also, so you must place a nonnegative
value in delay in order to change the rate.
Another character device configuration function allows
you to set the printer configuration. This is a code number
that contains information about the type of printer used. The
user usually sets this code from the Install Printer desk acces­
sory, and application programs can then read it and deter­
mine what type of printer is connected. ST Operating System
programs (like the screen dump and GEM Desktop file print-
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CHAPTER 3