keyboard failure that doesn't seem to be hardware - SOLVED!!! (for me at least)

[Tim]

DJ Delorie:
>> Hey developers!  "hold shift key for 10 seconds" is common in many
>> video games (esp Minecraft).  You can't just change the user's
>> keyboard without warning!

Tim:
> It's also common for typing ALL CAPS words when you don't want to use
> the caps lock key.

Or batch selecting a group of icons on the desktop or file manager.
Or restricting X or Y movement in drawing programs...

I know I've triggered that function, accidentally, quite a few times, on
older Fedora releases.  I've been left with no way to use keyboard, and
no apparent reason why.  At times I've found a requester windows has
popped up asking if I wanted to activate "sticky keys," but the
requester had appeared underneath current windows, and without any
indication that it was there in the window list on the bottom panel of
the Gnome screen.  And until that requester was answered, the keyboard
was unusable.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

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