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External Keyboard on a 760XL

Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 6:51 pm
by IrishPaul
Hi
this is my first post, I am glad to have found this forum and hopefully someone can help me with my problem.

I have a younger brother who is blind and wants to use a program called JAWS which allows keyboard only control of a PC with Audio output which "describes" what is on the screen allowing visually impaired people to get a mental "picture" of what is happening.
My father had a 760XL running Win98SE which seemed ideal for the purpose.

THe difficulty as such is that my brother has been learning the software using a full size keyboard such as found on a desktop. I suggested that they simply plug the external keyboard into the PS/2 port on the thinkpad and use it like that.
However Windows does not seem to recognise this keyboard and it isnt showing up in the Device Manager.
My question is this, does the port in question only support an external mouse or is there some way of setting up an external keyboard to run on this machine?

As I say its a 760XL running Win98E, not sure if it is important but I did a fresh install of windows before my dad tried to set this up.

Many thanks in advance to anyone who can help or give advice.

Posted: Fri Aug 25, 2006 8:11 pm
by JHEM
You need a Mouse/Keyboard Y adapter in order to connect a keyboard to the 760XL as a direct connection to the PS2 port is for a mouse only.

They're relatively inexpensive, but beware of purchasing a too cheap one as they sometimes don't work correctly.

This Belkin adapter is the one that IBM rebranded and sold as their own to address this situation.

Welcome to the Forum.

Regards,

James

Posted: Sat Aug 26, 2006 6:47 am
by IrishPaul
thank you for a swift response, i will give that a go!