Re Fn+F5 on HPs: I just tried Fn+F5 on my HP pavilion and it sent the
system into a whirl--Xy's NTVDM crashed, Xy disappeared (even though I was
in Eudora when I hit Fn+F5, then the whole system went into hibernation or
some sort of hiatus. The keycap symbol is a half moon, which may mean "go
to sleep".
So is it possible, Jon, that you're sometimes hitting Fn+F5 rather than F5
alone or, that trying to do Shift+F5 you missed?
I think you're on the right track. On my rather old HP Omnibook XE3, the
Fn-F5 key combination (where Fn is a small key near the bottom left of
the keyboard, used to access special functions labeled in blue on the
keytops) is used to toggle between the built-in display of the laptop
and an external display. When no external display is connected, pressing
the key combination by itself momentarily causes the entire screen to go
black. This happens in Xy or without, no matter. F5 by itself should
certainly _not_ cause this behavior, but there may be either something
wrong with the keyboard or the BIOS of the machine (stuck Fn key?), or
through some weird feat of unintended black magic, pressing F5 in Xy
sends a scan code that is interpreted by the laptop as Fn-F5. To test,
simply press F5 when Xy is _not_ running. If the screen still goes
momentarily black, the machine is at fault and Xy should be exonerated.
(I would also try Fn-F5 at this point, maybe the Fn key can be made to
come unstuck.) If the blackout only happens within Xy, the cure may be
more elusive.
Wolfgang Bechstein
bechstein@xxxxxxxx
Harry Binswanger
hb@xxxxxxxx