actually, I'm beginning to wonder if my "control" key is actually not working properly. It does beep when I press control-A but places a faded block cursor at the prompt and then a full coloured rectangle cursor blinking 2 lines above the last line....

Is there any test I can run on my keyboard?

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ok, confirmed: my actual keyboard is at fault, I hooked up a standard IIe keyboard and ctrl-A gets me a SSC: prompt.

Now does anyone have a clue why that would be?