> > > Unfortunately some old BIOSes have the annoying property that they
> > > refuse to boot without something looking like a keyboard attached;
> > > as witnessed by the infamous "No Keyboard, press F2 to continue"
> > > error message (or variants thereof).  Your mileage may wary.
> change in BIOS settings (standard options):
> 
> Halt on: "all errors" to halt on "all but disk/key" or "no errors"
> 
> it well make some beeps etc. but boots without keyboard and graphics... 
> > Yes, I suppose.  (I also have a somewhat newer machine that won't boot
> > without a video card in it---and there's no BIOS option to override that
> see above :)

The problem is that I do not think that such an option exists on my
computer.  (I had a similar discussion to this one about a year or so ago,
I think, on some other BIOS-related topic.  What I gathered was that some
manufacturers (such as Gateway, say) sometimes have custom versions of
BIOS created for them by BIOS-writing companies.  Certain features
sometimes get removed from such custom versions.  Hence, options that
others have on ``the same'' BIOS in their machines may not exist in my
machine.)

It's possible that with enough fiddling I could coax the old Gateway
machine to boot without a video card.  I don't see the point in trying,
since it already has a ``spare'' card that lets it boot.  It's not as if
I'm giving up space/electricity for a second monitor; it just has a
relatively unimpressive card in it saying ``I'm a video output'' to keep
BIOS happy.  It's done.  It works.  It's happy.  So, I'm happy.  (^&


  "I probably don't know what I'm talking about." --rauch@eecs.ukans.edu