Re: keyboard locks in 1.3.9x

Ulrich Windl (Ulrich.Windl@rz.uni-regensburg.de)
Wed, 24 Apr 1996 15:41:53 +0200


On 24 Apr 96 at 1:14, Theodore Y. Ts'o wrote:

> It happens to me 50% of the time when I switch CPU's --- I'm sharing one
> keyboard across multiple CPU's, using a VGA/Keyboard 4->1 switch box.
>
> Sending an arbitrary command to the keyboard solves the problem.
>
> Is there a way to send an arbitrary command to the keyboard by logging
> in over the network and running some user-mode program? Or better yet,
> is there some way we can make the kernel automatically figure send some
> sort of reset command when it gets a "Keyboard error"?
>
> Right now, the only recourse I have is the Big Red Switch (tm).
>
> - Ted

I know that the ol' Olivetti M28 (AT) was dead when the keyboard was
unplugged and replugged. To my surprise my Acer 1100SX could manage
this quite fine in DOS and BIOS, but not in MS-Windows. When I
replugged the keyboard, the PC made a short "beep", even in DOS
(Having loaded a keyboard driver I would expect that the ROM BIOS
were replaced by some DOS routines).

Now if we assume that the hardware can do it (proven by example),
and the software also can do it, let's see why it won't work all the
time (In fact it worked with Linux 1.0, too on my Acer). Is a
special hardware required?

To the solution with network access: Maybe some simple program can be
bound to some Internet service (like discard?) in /etc/inetd.conf.

Ulrich