keyboard letter keys type numbers instead

[Gordon]

My 85 year-old mother-in-law has a Toshiba laptop and has done something
that suddenly makes letter keys on the keyboard type numbers instead. She is
400 miles away! Can anyone suggest what on earth she might have done?

 

[BRG]

My 85 year-old mother-in-law has a Toshiba laptop and has done
something that suddenly makes letter keys on the keyboard type
numbers instead. She is 400 miles away! Can anyone suggest what
on earth she might have done?

She's inadvertently pressed the NumLock key. Laptops don't have a
numeric keypad, so they map number keys to letter keys for fast
numeric data entry use e.g. my HP laptop uses this layout:

7=7 8=8 9=9
4=U 5=I 6=O
1=J 2=K 3=L
0=M

(there are other key mappings to cover / * - + numeric block keys)

 

[Dave B.]

Turn off NumLock

 

[Gordon]

She's inadvertently pressed the NumLock key. Laptops don't have a
numeric keypad, so they map number keys to letter keys for fast
numeric data entry use e.g. my HP laptop uses this layout:

7=7 8=8 9=9
4=U 5=I 6=O
1=J 2=K 3=L
0=M

(there are other key mappings to cover / * - + numeric block keys)

Thanks - you're a star!