Xref: utzoo comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware:398 comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware:5258 Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!pmafire!uudell!twaddle.dell.com!jporter From: jporter@twaddle.dell.com (Jeff Porter) Newsgroups: comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware,comp.sys.ibm.pc.hardware Subject: Re: PS/2 :^H- on boot Message-ID: <14959@uudell.dell.com> Date: 7 Feb 91 21:08:21 GMT References: <8976@star.cs.vu.nl> Sender: news@uudell.dell.com Reply-To: jporter@twaddle.dell.com (Jeff Porter) Followup-To: comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware Organization: Dell Computer Corp. Lines: 33 In article , boegehol@informatik.uni-stuttgart.de (Harald Boegeholz) writes: |> In article <8976@star.cs.vu.nl> of comp.sys.ibm.ps2.hardware, |> mabdoor@cs.vu.nl (Doorn van MAB) writes: |> > I have a strange question about my IBM PS/2 Model 50Z. |> > |> > When I boot with MS-DOS, I get my normal prompt, but there also appears an |> > extra character. |> ... |> > I have to press Backspace to erase the character. Then I have no problem, my |> > system works fine. |> ... |> > NOTE2: It's not MS-DOS-s fault. The character also appears when I boot |> > MINIX (a unix version), or the OS/2 DOS-box. |> I got the same problem. Since it is not a PS/2, I'm crossposting... |> |> Most of the time, after I boot my system, there seems to be a |> character in the keyboard buffer. It's displayed as ^@ at the |> first prompt (probably a 0 character) and can be easily erased. |> |> It happens under DOS and OS/2 DOS-box. Of course no character appears |> in protected mode sessions. |> |> I suspect the keyboard controller gets messed up somewhere in the boot |> process, but I have no idea what could be done about it. It's a little |> annoying although not particularly harmful. Btw, it happens only about |> 9 out of 10 times... |> There is a problem with the KEYB.COM (or KEYB.SYS) file shipped with some versions of MS-DOS. It has been known to cause strange characters to appear on boot (such as ^@ and ^H). Jeff Porter