>> >Ok can you remember whether F3 had the effect of aborting the
>> >countdown? ie acting the same as enter?
>> 
>> i didn't.  that was the problem.  if it did abort the countdown, we
>> wouldn't be here now.
>
>Abort as in 'stop counting and boot now',
>not abort as in 'stop counting and give me a prompt',
>as opposed to 'continue counting but ignore the keyboard'.

abort as in "stop counting and give me the boot prompt".  like the
space bar.

not abort as in "skip counting and boot".  like return.

certainly not "keep counting and ignore me from now on".  which is
what it does now.

-- 
|-----< "CODE WARRIOR" >-----|
codewarrior@daemon.org             * "ah!  i see you have the internet
twofsonet@graffiti.com (Andrew Brown)                that goes *ping*!"
andrew@crossbar.com       * "information is power -- share the wealth."