Northgate Omnikey Evo Randomly Remaps Keys WTF

[shrap]

My Northgate Omnikey Evolution decided to stop working right in the middle of an email. In classic "computer rage" I mashed all the keys, trying to make it do something. Anything.

I got my wish, but now the keys are completely mapped to random things. For example, the F key now means.... Enter? A key is now D? The Enter key now prints out an L? I can't even figure out how to press ctrl-alt-del to log onto my computer...*sob*

Anyone had this ever happen before? Of all the ways to kill a keyboard... I didn't expect this one to happen. I was just about to buy another one of these monsters too, since it's the closest thing to a mechanical-ergonomic keyboard that's not priced in the stratosphere.

[rdh]

Just a guess, but: Perhaps when it "stopped working" it had gone into program mode, so you mashing the keys caused the randomness?

Do you know how to tell it to reset all the key mappings to the default?

[skriefal]

This old Usenet post has some info on using the program mode on an Omnikey Ultra.  Perhaps the Omnikey Evolution uses the same keypresses to get into program mode?  I do know that the "press left-shift 4 times" trick worked on an Omnikey 101P that was several years newer than the Ultra that is referred to in that old post.

http://groups.google.com/group/alt.folklore.computers/msg/9c8d638fc3de12a0?hl=en

[Hak Foo]

That reminds me of when the membrane connector got shifted on my Unicomp Customizer.  If it's not a software-config problem, might be there.

[zwmalone]

Jeesh... if I had a dollar every time this happened to me, I'd be rich...  The controller gets messed up in these very easily.  What you gotta do is restart while holding the ESC key during POST.  That'll reset the controller chip, and things'll be back to normal.

[itlnstln]

Jeesh... if I had a dollar every time this happened to me, I'd be rich... The controller gets messed up in these very easily. What you gotta do is restart while holding the ESC key during POST. That'll reset the controller chip, and things'll be back to normal.

You can't just restart, either, you need to shutdown completely and restart.  I used to have this happen quite a bit.  It is caused by pressing the Shift key a bunch (I'm not too sure exactly what the combo was).  It would always happen when I would Shift+Delete e-mails with attachments.  When I would do that, I would press the Shift key a lot and cause the 'board to lock up.  There is a way to remove the programming chip according to Northgate-Keyboard-Repair.com, but they request that you send the 'board into them to do it.  If you found the chip, you could pull it yourself.

[zwmalone]

It happens alot when I play WoW... considering I've already had the board apart, I may just have to take a look-see for that chip...

[Rajagra]

It happens alot when I play WoW... considering I've already had the board apart, I may just have to take a look-see for that chip...

At last the truth is coming out.

"Leeeeeeerrrooooooooyyyyy ... J-J-J-Jeeeeeeeennkiiiinnss;
OK chums, let's do thi....

...Hold on chums, my Northgate is playing up."

*Raid wipes.*

"Leroy, you idiot."

[shrap]

You guys are awesome, I'll give some of these ideas a try when I get back home. I kinda hope it's just the controller that needs resetting, cause my hardware troubleshooting skills consist of "hammer until fixed". But if it happens very frequently, that might be a problem too. The Evolution's weird numpad behavior is pretty annoying already. That's something that everyone else takes for granted, proper keyboard programming.

[shrap]

Holding down the Esc key during startup worked. It only took me a few keystrokes beforehand to remember how mushy my old Microsoft Natural Keyboard is, and another couple seconds to ponder my replacement keyboard. Thanks again.