keyboard/bios hack (was: DIY SnapServer)

[Kevin Buettner]

On Oct 21,  8:26pm, Eric Thelin wrote:

> > Check the BIOS.  If there's no way to disable the check for a missing
> > keyboard in the BIOS, there are some inexpensive gizmos that plug into
> > the keyboard jack which make your machine think there's a keyboard
> > there.
> 
> Where do I get one of those gizmos?  I have some motherboards in servers
> that turned out to need a keyboard plugged in and I hate leaving a
> keyboard sitting there just incase it needs to be rebooted.

Well, maybe I lied.

I remember seeing something about such a gizmo a few years ago.

I searched the web and actually did find such a gizmo made by an
outfit in the UK, but it wasn't cheap.  (You could buy several cheap
keyboards for the price.)  Also, I came across a reference to
a product apparently called "Keyboard Ghost" from www.blackbox.com,
but was unable to learn anything about it.

I did come across the following though, which looks interesting:

    http://www.realweasel.com/intro.html

Here's a summary of what it does (from their web page):

 - MDA (Monochrome Display Adapter) video emulation, outputting the
   video data as RS-232 serial.

 - Keyboard emulation, receiving the user's keystrokes via RS-232
   serial and presenting them to the motherboard.

 - Host PC reset, either manually under command from the serial port,
   or automatically via the PC Weasel's onboard watchdog timer.

 - Access to the last-written ISA POST (Power On Self Test) code to
   aid the user in diagnosing a dead motherboard.

I don't know what they cost or where they're available from.

But back to disabling the keyboard...  I've read that you should
disable the POST error reporting in the BIOS and that'll get it
past the error of not being able to find a keyboard.  Of course,
if you get some other error that you ought to know about, you
won't know about it...

Kevin