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Entries should be friendly and offer help as to how they want their holders to view them. To this end we establish a help convention for programs and people. The convention is that the order code hex 80000000 is like a help command. {This call may not be prompt; the NEVER key will not be prompt, for example. Entries to malformed domains and entries to busy domains may likewise be non-prompt.}

See (p1,metercall) for meter keys and (p1,segkeepslot) for segment keys. Chapter (p2,primary) provides the details of how other primary keys conform to this convention.

If this order code is used with a key the order code returned is determined by the program behind the gate. The response to this command should establish what conventions the key is designed to obey. When a new function is conceived by anyone that is embodied by an key a random 32 bit number may be chosen as an alleged type. Alternatively the call NEWNAME(;==>n;) returns 32 bits that are unlikely to have been used by any other type of key. This number will be the return code for order code 80000000. The symbol "kt" is widely used in this manual and elsewhere to represent X'80000000'. In addition a memory key to EBDIC text may be returned for human consumption.

Resume keys can't be expected to conform to this convention. Other system architecture demands that EX(X'80000000';==>;) return control to a domain and to a point in that domain's program that can't be expected to handle the X'80000000' that will appear as a return code. {See (p2,discrim) for help on this point.}

{ni}Segment keys that reply with X'RL05' {according to the logic of their segment keepers} should also provide a format segment describing the format of that segment. See (p2,segform) on the format of format segments.

The following table gives the alleged type codes: