Hi All,

I am working with fedora 6 , i386 architecture.I am trying to write on keyboard port via program.On inspation i come to know that 0x0060 to 0xz006f are used for keyboard in linux 2.6 kernel in the i/o space from kernel.

#include<sys/io.h>
#include<stdio.h>
#include</usr/lib/syslinux/com32/include/sys/io.h>
#include<unistd.h>
//#define
/*
Port Rd/Wte Function
0x60 Read Read Input Buffer
0x60 Write Write Output Buffer
0x64 Read Read Status Register
0x64 Write Send Command

0060-006f : keyboard */
/*
#define I8042_COMMAND_REG 0x64
#define I8042_STATUS_REG 0x64
#define I8042_DATA_REG 0x60
*/
//inb(value,port)
int main()
{
printf("%c",0x50);
printf("Accessing Permission = %d",iopl(3));
outb(0x50,0x0060);
//printf("\n Accessing Permission = %d",iopl(3));
printf("\n Read Character, data = %c,\tstatus = %d,\t command = %d",inb(0x0060),inb(0x0064),inb(0x0064));
}

compiling command is :gcc -O2 -o port port.c
where port.c : program
port : target object file

In this program i am not able to write on the keyboard port.

Can anybody help in this matter ? What could be the flaw, where is the issue?

Thanks.

Ankur

Hi -

The commands you're talking about are implemented in the BIOS (not in the x86 processor per se).

The whole purpose of an OS is to *insulate* you from the BIOS (and other low-level, hardware details).

Short answer: you can do it ... but it'll take considerably more effort than you might think.

Strong suggestion:
If you want "unbuffered keyboard I/O", then I strongly urge you to consider using a library like SDL (for "games-like" interfaces), or ncurses (for text-mode).

IMHO .. PSM

What paulsm4 said...
Do you know what writing to the keyboard will accomplish? If you really want to write to x86 IO ports, you can use the ioperm() + outb() family of functions, or the /dev/port interface. You will require root privileges to do this. There is quite likely an existing driver accessing that hardware, and you may be disallowed access altogether, or at best you will be competing for access to the hardware by said driver.

If this is more than just a target to practice throwing bytes at, I would be most interested in your application, especially if it is to for some novel way of using a PC keyboard interface.

--- rod.