Milo/Multia/Keyboard problems

Ka'plaagh 19-Dec-1995 0948 +0000 (rusling@rdgeng.enet.dec.com)
Tue, 19 Dec 95 10:46:44 MET

>
> With reference to keyboard problems and Multia. I've built
> a multia Milo that initialises the keyboard; normally it
> doesn't as it assumes that ARC has done that. It will
> arrive on gatekeeper sometime and is in the Miniloader
> area (test-images/udb/milo.tga.kbd.arc). It is the
> same init code (exactly) as Linux.
>
> Dave
>

Has anyone successfully installed BLADE 0.3 on a 233 MHz Multia
(model VX42B-F2)?

I get through Milo loading the kernel OK, but as soon as the kernel asks
me to insert a root disk and press enter, my keyboard problems begin. Just
about any keystroke results in the wrong characters, and messages like
"keyboard: unknown scancode 70" (or something similar, I'm working from
memory here). It acts almost like the keyboard is in the wrong mode.

At first I thought the problem might be the Microsoft Natural Keyboard I'm
using, so I swapped it for a generic Taiwanese keyboard, but it didn't help.
In fact, while the Microsoft keyboard worked fine in the firmware setup menus,
NT 3.5, and Milo, the generic keyboard had timeout problems about half the
time on power-up, resulting in this message:

Timeout on keyboard controller or keyboard initialization.
All I/O is going to serial port #1.

Since the Microsoft Natural Keyboard seems to work fine with everything else
(and with Linux 1.2.11 on my Pentium box), I am at a loss to understand why
the Linux kernel isn't working.

I hope I don't have to shell out more bucks for a Digital keyboard.

Thanks!
Eric