Found a PS/2 keyboard!

Yay!  It was in one of the innumerable small moving boxes remaining in the barn, along with a couple of USB keyboards and a bunch of other stuff.

And now I remember about those AT keybooards: I snarfed those up, back in the day, because they have the XT/AT mode switch.  XT mode was simple, and the interface could easily be implemented in TTL chips, back in the days when microcontrollers were yet luxury items.

If memory serves, AT mode is the same as PS/2 except for the connector, but I don't know as I have any adapters that run that way, and if I do I don't know where to find them.

Anyway, keyboard.  Plug it in to the ToasterCo loaner Windows box.  Turn on power.  BIOS error screen comes up on the VGA monitor.  Press F5 for onboard diagnostics.  It acts like I'd pressed F1 to continue: boots up Windows.  OK, then.

Windows doesn't recognize the PS/2 keyboard.  Select port 4 on the KVM switch: now my USB keyboard and mouse drive it.  And, I do indeed have the password!

Connect the HDMI cable + adapter to the DisplayPort: main monitor is now the right-hand display for Windows.  Cool.  Guess it's just the BIOS that doesn't like DisplayPort nor USB.

Fiddle around a little, disconnect the VGA cable, and reboot.  Comes up as it should.

Needs connecting to the under-desk network, and installation of the software for the new project.  I'm assuming that will go more or less smoothly.

Time go play Easter Bunny.  Lenin's Deathday Bunny.  One of those things.

Comments

[Rob]

Lenin? I didn't know that...

[Eric Wilner]

Or Louis XVI; take your pick.