In Kermit 95s normal keyboard modes described in the previous
sections, pressing a key either sends ASCII-encoded text and control
codes to the remote host, or performs some action within Kermit 95.
Pressing the 'a' key sends ASCII character 97 ('a') to the remote
host, pressing the left arow key sends ASCII characters 27 91 68
(ESC [ D) for VT-style terminals, etc.
The PCTerm keyboard mode does not work this way at all.
In the PCTerm keyboard mode, except for Ctrl+Capslock (which toggles
PCTerm mode), Kermit 95 sends whatever keyboard hardware
scan codes it receives from Windows straight to the remote
host unmodified. The remote host receives a scan code on key down,
and another on key up. As the scan codes are 8-bit values, this
only works on 8-bit clean connections. PCTerm is available for any
terminal type, but the remote host must understand PCTerm mode for
it to work. PCTerm mode is not available on OS/2 as Kermit 95 is
unable to receive key-up events from the OS/2 console.
For example, in PCTerm mode when you press down the A key on a
regular US-English PC Keyboard, Kermit sends the byte 0x1E. And when
the A key is released, Kermit sends the byte 0x9E. While the A key
is held down, the byte 0x1E will be sent according to the key repeat
rate. So holding A for a few moments may result in the bytes
0x1E 0x1E 0x1E 0x9E being sent.
This applies if multiple keys are pressed and released too. For
example, if you press down A, then B, then release A then release B
the bytes 0x1E 0x30 0x9E 0xB0 would be sent.