unplugging the keyboard (was:Re: $_)

[Chris Calabrese[mav]]

In article <19 at oink.UUCP>, jep at oink.UUCP (James E. Prior) writes:
| In article <1083 at adds.newyork.NCR.COM> tanya at adds.newyork.NCR.COM (Tanya Katz) writes:
| ...
| >Last weekend must have been damage the pc weekend, because I too created
| >havoc by disconnecting the keyboard.  I was just supposed to be for 
| >a second, the phone rang just as I did this and sent my computer
| >into never-never land.  Had to reboot! Ugh!
| 
| I've had this happen accidentally.  I can usually recover by plugging the
| keyboard back in and pushing many buttons until the computer and keyboard
| are back in sync.  Even when you can recover, this can make a mess in an
| editor.  Don't intentionally unplug your keyboard, but if it does happen,
| you might want to try my crazy method.  I make no claims as to the suit-
| ability of this method for your use.  i.e. Do this at your own risk.  It
| has worked for me, but might not work for you.  In general, devices of this
| type shouldn't be connected or disconnected while the power is on.  

If I remember my net.history, Tanya has a 3b1 which does, indeed, barf
when you unplug the keyboard.  No ammount of fiddling will help, since
the device driver for the keyboard will simply freeze if it loses its
precious signals from the keyboard.

Of course, there are other machines which allow you to unplug the keyboard
more readily.  On my machine at work (a Sun 3/60), unplugging the keyboard
results in random keyboard state (what keys are considered down, including
CAPS, etc) upon replugging, but hitting the L1 key will reset all states
to the default (no CAPS, all keys up).
-- 
Name:			Christopher J. Calabrese
Brain loaned to:	AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ
att!ulysses!cjc		cjc at ulysses.att.com
Obligatory Quote:	``Now, where DID I put that bagel?''