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DOSBox version:
If you use DOSBox you can write accented vowels in the usual way,
except for Ó and Ú, which may not work properly. Read on for more details,
please.
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If you want to use certain characters, such as accented vowels, and you
do not have a Spanish keyboard, or your version of Windows will not let you,
you can use the comma key as if you were pressing the accent sign on an old typewriter:
first you write the accent sign with the comma key, then the vowel
that will appear under the accent sign. You can also use this trick to
write ñ, Ñ and ü.
Here is the full list of characters you can write like this if you have
problems with these Spanish characters:
| ,a = á |
| ,A = Á | |
| ,e = é | ,E = É |
| ,i = í | ,I = Í |
| ,o = ó | ,O = Ó ¹ |
| ,u = ú | ,U = Ú |
| ,n = Ñ | ,N = Ñ |
| ,d = ü | (the d is for "diéresis", the Spanish word for umlaut.) |
¹ This trick does not work with the capital accented Ó, which
refuses to appear on the screen even if you use the ALT + 224 code which corresponds
to it in the ASCII character map. On Windows 7 and 8 the capital accented Ú
sometimes appears as a lowercase accented é.
I still haven't found any other way around this problem,
so if you have any ideas about how to solve it, I am all ears.
If you are using an English keyboard, you can hold the ALT key
and press a 3-digit character code in the numeric keyboard on the right of
a full keyboard, which is what I had to do to write in Spanish when I was
in England (however, you will not be able to do this on a laptop keyboard
or using Linux). Here are some sample codes:
ALT + 160 = á
ALT + 130 = é
ALT + 161 = í
ALT + 162 = ó
ALT + 163 = ú
ALT + 164 = ñ
ALT + 165 = Ñ
ALT + 181 = Á
ALT + 144 = É
ALT + 214 = Í
ALT + 224 = Ó (this one does not work)
ALT + 233 = Ú
ALT + 129 = ü
You can find out which characters are available in your computer by looking up
the word "HELP7" (without the inverted commas) in LEXIS.
The Windows XP version works perfectly with previous versions of Windows
and even with MS-DOS if you are using a Spanish keyboard, but Windows XP
itself can be a bit tricky, and as time passes and you install new software
and uninstall old one, this O.S. gradually degrades until DOS programs like
LEXIS will work only in a reduced window, or running such programs actually
becomes impossible (in my own experience). Only reinstalling Windows solved
that problem for me.
On Windows 7 you may be able to run the 64-bit version, or you may have to
use the 32-bit version, and you will be unable to use it in full-screen mode.
Also, you will not be able to use accented vowels from your keyboard in the
usual way (see more information below), because the newer versions of Windows
use a different keyboard map.
On Windows 8 and later versions a 64-bit version of LEXIS could be run,
but it posed the same problems with the accented vowels.
To solve all these problems, you can use the comma "trick", which will work
on all operating systems, but you will need to use DOSBox for linux and
the most recent versions of Windows.
Page updated in September 2019
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