Speed up your keyboard's response time and repeat rate

You can dramatically speed up the keyboard response and increase the repeat rate when you hold down a key. To do this insert the following command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file:

MODE CON: rate=32 delay=1

Mode -- Mode configures system devices such as the parallel and serial ports, code pages and the display. In this instance we have changed the "typematic" rate (the rate at which DOS repeats a character when the key for that character is held down). The typematic rate has two components rate and delay. The syntax for the MODE command to set the typematic rate is:

MODE CON[:] [RATE=r DELAY=d]

CON -- Refers to the keyboard.

RATE=r -- Specifies the rate at which a character is repeated on the screen when you hold down a key. Valid values are from 1 to 32, and equal approximately 2 to 30 characters per second, respectively. The default value on your Palmtop is 20. If you set the rate, you must also set the delay.

DELAY=d -- Specifies the amount of time that must elapse after you press and hold down a key before DOS starts to repeat the character. Valid values for d are 1, 2, 3, and 4 (representing 0.25, 0.50, 0.75, and 1 second, respectively). The default value is 2. If you set the delay, you must also set the rate.

By placing the above example command in your AUTOEXEC.BAT file, you set the repeat rate to 30 characters per second and tell DOS to pause for 1/4 second before repeating the character.