Backslash on a Mac

[grimpixie]

@Bytegeist

So, the ‘’ key is on there, somewhere, I can almost guarantee you — unless someone pried it off with a screwdriver.

A little further prodding reveals the following:

@My colleague

The problem is that – although there is a backslash key on the mac keyboard – near the return key, it doesn’t come out as a backslash when you use it when accessing RAS. It comes out as a #.
The @ key has a similar problem with RAS – if I press the actual @ key on the mac via RAS, it comes out as ". In order to get @, I have to press the " key! Weird! I’ve tried all the other keys to see if something else is serving as the backslash, but no luck!

So it seems that its not that her backslash key is missing, but that it doesn’t work properly when she connects to our network via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection for Mac (this application)…

Anyone know what the alt code for a backslash?

Grim

[Balthisar]

@grimpixie

A little further prodding reveals the following: So it seems that its not that her backslash key is missing, but that it doesn’t work properly when she connects to our network via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection for Mac (this application)…

I think, then, that maybe she need to change the keyboard layout not on her Mac, which is correct, but on the RAS system. If you mean Remote Desktop Connection to get onto a Windows machine, then the Windows Regional and Language Options control panel should control what keys map to what characters. The “shift-2 equals quotation mark” just screams “international” keyboard setup to me – or Commodore 64 ;). If this is for DOS, then I’ll let you figure out how to set the correct codepage – it’s been too long for me to remember, but that’s the key Google search word you’ll want.
On the off chance that she’s remoting in to a Windows machine and from there using a dumb terminal (like talking to a mainframe with a text-based system), then the terminal emulator program on Windows will also have keybindings. For example, on my terminal emulator for certain work functions, the right-control key is mapped to enter, and I have no idea what enter does – it’s not enter, though. I have to go into the keymapping preferences (independent of the Windows control panels) and map the correct keys there. But hey, it’s a relic of the 1980’s, so I can be a little forgiving.

[Doctor_Who]

My Sony Vaio has a numlock, but no numeric keypad. It transforms a block of regular keys into a semblance of the numeric keypad …

And makes me think my computer is malfunctioning / hacked / virus-infested every freaking time. Just a thought, but maybe when she gets into the Remote Desktop Connection it kicks on her numlock?

[Bytegeist]

@grimpixie

A little further prodding reveals the following: So it seems that its not that her backslash key is missing, but that it doesn’t work properly when she connects to our network via Microsoft’s Remote Desktop Connection for Mac (this application)…

Balthisar suggests that the problem is not on the Mac end, but I think it’s worth a quick check. A test would be to open up a text editor, like TextEdit, or perhaps the Terminal application, type the ‘’ key, and see what character you get. (If the operating system is MacOS 8 or 9, not X, then look for SimpleText instead.)

If she doesn’t get a backslash, then perhaps she does have the wrong keyboard layout selected. If her machine is running MacOS X, this setting is controlled in the System Preferences window (reachable from the “Apple” menu in the upper left corner), under the International, Input Menu panel.

Anyone know what the alt code [ is ] for a backslash?

The character code is 92 (hex 5C), but I don’t think that’s going to help you much. If the Mac is sending the code for a backslash and it’s getting mangled into something else on the other end, then it doesn’t matter which character input method you used on the sending side.