From: Jason Green <news AT jgreen4 DOT fsnet DOT co DOT uk>
Newsgroups: comp.os.msdos.djgpp
Subject: Re: dos pipes not working
Date: Wed, 22 Nov 2000 23:55:56 +0000
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Hans-Bernhard Broeker <broeker AT physik DOT rwth-aachen DOT de> wrote:

> Alex Crowther <alex_crowther AT yahoo DOT com> wrote:
> 
> > Anyone have a definitive answer as to why dos pipes dont work on
> > UK installations of Win98. 
> 
> Actually, they do, but there's an easy-to make typing error lurking
> there. For some reason way beyond my comprehension, the UK PC keyboard
> layout has *two* vertical line characters, on different keys. Only one
> of them works as the 'pipe' character. Try the other one (it's a
> vertical line with a hole in the middle, IIRC), and watch the
> difference. (Or stop using that braindead UK keyboard layout, in the
> first place. :-)

Actually, it's the OS which is brain-dead for assuming everyone uses a
US layout and requiring a TSR to be loaded to tell it otherwise.  (I
think the smiley means you know that though ;-).

There's more to it that just the pipe character, although that's the
infuriating one because it displays as a vertical bar.  Other keys are
mixed up without these magic lines:

in config.sys:
country=044,850,c:\windows\command\country.sys

in autoexec.bat:
keyb uk,,c:\windows\command\keyboard.sys

If you ever find yourself on a mis-configured system, remember that
holding down 'Alt' and typing 0124 on the numeric keypad will enter
the pipe character.

As with all things in the Windoze world, YMMV ;-)