Date: Wed, 07 May 1997 22:40:59 -0700 From: "Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com" <michaelv@MindBender.serv.net> To: Charles Owens <owensc@enc.edu> Cc: Mike Nowlin <mike@r2d2.smlab.com>, freebsd-stable@freebsd.org Subject: Re: frozen virtual terminals on Dell system Message-ID: <199705080541.WAA07910@MindBender.serv.net> In-Reply-To: Your message of Wed, 07 May 97 20:42:15 -0400. <Pine.FBS.3.93.970507203640.22577A-100000@dingo.its.enc.edu>
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>On Wed, 7 May 1997, Mike Nowlin wrote:
>> On Wed, 7 May 1997, Michael L. VanLoon -- HeadCandy.com wrote:
>> > I have seen exactly this same problem under NetBSD. I was going
>> > through a switch-box, however, and just assumed the switch-box was to
>> > blame. Now, I suspect that it's actually the Dell keyboard hardware.
>> We have a single keyboard connected via switch box to a FreeBSD 2.1.7
>> machine, two Linux boxes, and a Win95 box... If you flip the switch too
>> fast, the keyboard locks up. But if you "pause" between the switch
>> positions (halfway between A and B), it works fine... Has something to do
>> with the keyboard power being cut off and the sync pulses from the CPUs...
>Some switch boxes have diodes on the keyboard power lines that are
>supposed to maintain constant power to the keyboard while switching. My
>friend found that this was actually causing some kind of spike that was
>blowing the keyboard power fuse on the motherboard. He blew two of these
[...]
>To be safe, when I bought my switchbox (from JDR) I rewired it in the same
>manner and have had no problems in over a year and a half of frequent
>switching.
Let me assure you that isn't the problem in my case. These are very
expensive high-end fully digital switch-boxes (they even super-impose
the name of the machine you're switched to in the corner of your
display). We have literally hundreds of machines (many Dells) hooked
up to these running NT. The two running NetBSD are the two that I'm
having problems with.
>(I don't have a Dell, BTW...)
Well then, that's likely not going to help my case much, then. :-) It
seems that this is a Dell-specific "feature". They like to do some
things their own way, and I wouldn't be surprised a bit if they made
some funky half-compatible keyboard mod.
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Michael L. VanLoon michaelv@MindBender.serv.net
--< Free your mind and your machine -- NetBSD free un*x >--
NetBSD working ports: 386+PC, Mac 68k, Amiga, Atari 68k, HP300, Sun3,
Sun4/4c/4m, DEC MIPS, DEC Alpha, PC532, VAX, MVME68k, arm32...
NetBSD ports in progress: PICA, others...
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