On Mon, 30 Jan 2006 16:18, you wrote: > My headless boxes (running linux of course) in the computer cabinet will > not boot without a keyboard (Press f1 to continue D'ohhh) > > No bios option to ignore the lack of keyboard. > > As there are now two, soon to be three of them it is a pain to store > three keyboards in the cupboard, they add to the mess of wires and are > just a pain, particulalrly when one falls on top of another and sticks a > key down *sigh* > > I saw something once about how to wire some resistors to a ps/2 plug to > fool the computer into thinking there was a keyboard there. However > google lets me down.
I don't believe you can get away with just a resistor. Generally a keyboard sends two bytes at reset (or power up) to indicate its status. This is what the BIOS is looking for (same goes for mice). You can buy things to do this, but probably the cheapest way is to buy (or otherwise obtain) an old keyboard, rip out the tiny circuit board inside, cut the PS/2 cable really short and resolder it to the board. Now you have a short length of cable with a PCB attached. You plug it in and presto! Your PC thinks it has a keyboard. Put the PCB in a small box to prevent it shorting out with other stuff. Are you *sure* there is no BIOS option to ignore all errors at startup? Yes, you may have a very old PC there, but this feature has been around for a while. If you want to have a go but you're no good with a soldering iron I'll do it for you. Andy
