Patrick Shanahan wrote:

* Paul Abrahams [09-06-06 19:54]:

...

Is there a Linux program around, preferably part of the SuSE distribution, for testing all the keys on my keyboard? I washed one of my keyboards and it had stuck keys for a while. I want to be sure that they're all gone.

And an aside: what are folks' favorite ways of cleaning keyboards?

I have a programmable 133 key gateway 2000 keyboard (dated 10-02-92) that I got with a 286 (about that time). I remove the keys, vacuum, and clean with lens solution, then air dry. Never a problem.

Many years ago, I used to repair video terminals (remember them?). I'd often wash the keyboards under the hot water tap. Clean water is not harmful to electronics. In fact, many circuit boards are cleaned with hot water or steam during manufacture.

At 08:55 PM 9/6/2006 -0400, James Knott wrote:

Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

* Paul Abrahams [09-06-06 19:54]:

...

Is there a Linux program around, preferably part of the SuSE distribution, for testing all the keys on my keyboard? I washed one of my keyboards and it had stuck keys for a while. I want to be sure that they're all gone.

And an aside: what are folks' favorite ways of cleaning keyboards?

I have a programmable 133 key gateway 2000 keyboard (dated 10-02-92) that I got with a 286 (about that time). I remove the keys, vacuum, and clean with lens solution, then air dry. Never a problem.

Many years ago, I used to repair video terminals (remember them?). I'd often wash the keyboards under the hot water tap. Clean water is not harmful to electronics. In fact, many circuit boards are cleaned with hot water or steam during manufacture.

James is correct. Back in the late 60's, I worked for a very large, and very savvy electronics firm, and I discovered that they cleaned test equipment under a hose! But no soap, please. Whatever is in soap tends to be corrosive. But clear water is fine, so long as it gets dry before you turn anything on. Nowadays, circuit boards may be manufactured with a solder flux that's water soluble, and the boards can be washed. Thanx to the DEP. (And finally, there is now a flux that can just be left on the pcb, and no cleaning at all is done.) Some other correspondant mentioned a dishwasher. I would think not. I've seen wooden salad bowls and the handle of a frying pan badly damaged by the hot water. I think the temperatures get up into the 130~150 degree F range. You wouldn't want to stick your hand in that. He may have lucked out, but I wouldn't try it, myself. As far as a program, what could be better than pushing all the keys? --doug

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Wednesday 2006-09-06 at 21:44 -0400, Paul Abrahams wrote:

I've seen a program (don't remember the OS or anything) where you see a picture of a keyboard on the screen and press each key in turn.

There were a number of programs that did that under dos, doing a low level test. But in Linux, even 'mc' can do it. - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFE/38etTMYHG2NR9URAk5XAJ9e6uqXkJiQt6QEntOLm2XwDu3GigCgj2Zb 7/orYjL5xBU65Svj6B/OJdU= =XzlX -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----

* Doug McGarrett [09-06-06 23:13]:

I guess you have been around for a while. I think that program was a DOS routine, or maybe even something from CPM! I do remember it. It does not seem to be on my machine today. However, there seem to be a whole batch of programs available on Google, probably all for M/S systems. Just type in "keyboard test" and watch what happens.

try "showkey -a" from kbd-1.12-62.rpm -- Patrick Shanahan Registered Linux User #207535 http://wahoo.no-ip.org @ http://counter.li.org HOG # US1244711 Photo Album: http://wahoo.no-ip.org/gallery2

On 06/09/06 22:43, Paul Abrahams wrote:

On Wednesday 06 September 2006 11:30 pm, Patrick Shanahan wrote:

...

try "showkey -a" from kbd-1.12-62.rpm

That doesn't show anything if you just press a shift key, and pressing Pause/Break seems to freeze it.

try "showkey" -- but don't run it inside X, as that conflicts with the X keyboard manager, and sometimes produces some rather strange results.

On Thursday 07 September 2006 11:23 am, Joachim Schrod wrote:

Paul Abrahams wrote:

...

I've seen a program (don't remember the OS or anything) where you see a picture of a keyboard on the screen and press each key in turn. If the key is working properly the one on the screen darkens or something like that.

xkeycaps does that; maybe you mean it. Though, nowadays it's yellow and not dark anymore. ;-)

Its list of keyboards is not very up to date, so special keys like "Mail" and "WWW" (on my Logitech keyboard) aren't handled. Paul

Doug McGarrett wrote:

Some other correspondant mentioned a dishwasher. I would think not. I've seen wooden salad bowls and the handle of a frying pan badly damaged by the I have seen stuff like that too but still my favorite and most successful way of cleaning a keyboard is the dishwasher. I cleaned a really old VT340 keyboard and it looked like new afterward. I put the parts in a basket on the top shelf and the heat was not a problem.

As far as a program, what could be better than pushing all the keys? some keys don't generate visible characters so it might be difficult to know if some keys were working correctly or not. I made a small program for Windows once to show me the chars generated by each key because I didn't have any handy list of what each key did and I wanted to use certain special keys in another program.

Damon Register

-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The Thursday 2006-09-07 at 09:21 +0200, David Wright wrote:

Avoid normal soaps (washing up liquid etc.), the same as you would never use them to clean a motorcycle or anything chromed. Normal washing up liquids, tabs etc. contain salt as part of their cleaning agent, which, of course, is very corrosive to bare metal, so should be avoided!

I have used hands or bath soap, ie, mild soap, with good results. Of course, rinsing with clear water is important! - -- Cheers, Carlos E. R. -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (GNU/Linux) Comment: Made with pgp4pine 1.76 iD8DBQFE//1YtTMYHG2NR9URAhAwAJ9wmZmIflr4MBvokcHDTr2n8IYzIACghSOz iOVUcTiyH6SBhlze+ERZtic= =EUro -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----