I am finally motivated to ask if anyone has ever seen anything
of this sort, or whether it's my unusual many-key keyboard, which
lacks much by way of identification.

Every so often under X -- under many historical versions, and
XFree86 4.0 -- at the start of a line in all sorts of clients I
get a ` character.  It's sporadic, but I will see it over the course
of a night's hacking.   Also sporadically, the keyboard will seize
up, and need to be unplugged and replugged into the PS/2-style
connector.  After that it works fine.  These two symptoms happen
on both machines on which I use this particular type of keyboard.

I don't spend enough time in the console to tell if it happens 
outside of X.

It's just a minor irritation, and I'm wondering if it just goes
down to keyboard brand/model.

pckbc0 at isa0 port 0x60-0x64
pckbd0 at pckbc0 (kbd slot)
pckbc0: using irq 1 for kbd slot
wskbd0 at pckbd0: console keyboard, using wsdisplay0
pmsi0 at pckbc0 (aux slot)
pckbc0: using irq 12 for aux slot

MODEL NO.: SK-2500
FCC ID: GYUR40SK
P/N: KX2500WRIU

	Sean.