Northgate keyboard.
A company called Northgate Computer Systems made a line of popular keyboards. It went bankrupt several years ago. Recently I was using one of the keyboards and ran into a problem. The keys were remapped, preventing touch typing. The solution turned out to be easy. There is not much on this problem in the search engines.
I was using a Northgate Omnikey/101. For some reason most of the keys were mapped incorrectly. The OS settings were normal. When I tried booting in DOS, the keyboard was fine. In Linux and Windows, however, the keys were remapped.
It turns out the keys were remapped to the “Dvorak Right-Hand Keyboard Layout.” There are several layouts built into this keyboard. According to the manual, they are:
Type of layout, first six keys above home row, first six keys on home row:
Standard: qwerty, asdfgh
Dvorak: ‘,.pyf, adeuid
Dvorak Right-Hand: 56q.or, 78zaeh
Dvorak Left-Hand: ;qbyur, -kcdth
According to the manual, you can freely switch between these layouts at any time. To do so, use the following procedure:
1. Press the Option Select button. At the top left corner of the keyboard is the Northgate logo plate. Swing it out. Inside are some dip switches. To the left of the dip switches is an orange square. This is the Option Select button.
2. Press the PAUSE key.
3. Press the appropriate function key.
F1: Normal “QWERTY”
F2: Dvorak Standard
F3: Dvorak Left-hand
F4: Dvorak Right-hand
For the ULTRA keyboards, press the SF Select button, then the appropriate left-side function key, according to the table above.
Very good. Following that procedure solved the problem. I switched back to good old QWERTY.
This is a great keyboard. The modern incarnation is made by Avant Stellar. (*)
A Northgate keyboard cleaning and repair business is online. (†)
Update: 18 April 2004. I’ve received some inquiries about dip switches. Since I only have the one Northgate manual, I’m not sure whether the following might or might not apply to Northgate keyboards other than the OmniKey 101.
The standard setting for a PC is all 8 of the dip switches in the down (off) position.
Exceptions to the “all 8 dip switches down” rule are:
IBM XT: dip switch 1 is up (on).
Amiga 2000, 2500: 1 and 3 are up
ATT6300: 2 is up
Tandy 1000SX and 1000TX: 3 is up
ATT 6300 WGS: 1 and 2 are up.
Novell server (really old): 4 is up
The next dip switches vary some of the keyboard function.
To swap Caps Lock, CTRL, and ALT key positions, 5 is up.
To swap backslash and asterisk keys: 6 is up.
To turn on Dvorak layout: 7 is up.
To turn on “sticky keys” 8 is up.
Finally, after doing some Google Groups (Usenet) searching, I found some old scuttlebutt that the proper dip switch setting for the Mac is 1, 3, and 8 down, the rest up.
Of course, to change dip switch settings, power off the computer first.
That is all I know about the Northgate keyboard and dip switch settings. Good luck.
June 16th, 2004 at 11:04
Hi …since i only understood about 1/2 of what you were talking about on the northgate keyboard, I wondered if you could tell me what i would do for this problem? I have a northgate omni with the touchpad in the center. I love the keyboard , however, all of a sudden the mouse runs where it wants? is there a simple fix for this? Any help would be greatly appreciated…..thanks again
June 16th, 2004 at 14:37
It sounds like a software (driver) problem. Of course, it could be a hardware failure, but usually these things are driver-related.
If your keyboard came with a software program, specifically a device driver, you might be able to fix the problem by re-installing the device driver from your software media (probably a floppy diskette (probably a 3.5″ microdisk)).
After doing some Google searches, it appears that the touchpads on Northgate keyboards were made under the “GlidePoint” brand name, and manufactured by Cirque Corporation. Cirque only offers drivers for retail products. http://www.cirque.com/support/drivers.html Most likely what you would have in the touchpad is a Cirque OEM product, not a retail product.
There is also a possibility that you could receive technical support from ALPS. http://www.alpsusa.com/zcSite/alpsPublic/public/oemTechSupport.html
If all else fails, you might be able to simply remove the device driver and hope that the operating system reinstalls it automatically. If you are using Windows 95 or later, you can right-click on My Computer, click on properties, go through the hardware list, and find the touchpad under “Mouse.” Remove it and reboot.
Before you take any action, though, you should realize that you are kind of winging it. That’s okay.
Good luck.