I have the once-infamous Gateway 2000 keyboard and ages ago (pre-1.0)
I had the problem of the keyboard not working unless I held a key down
during boot.  I am now using pcvt; I can send kernel config if desired.

That problem has been gone for a long time now, but when I use
Ctl-Alt-ESC to go into ddb, and continue back from ddb, the keyboard
is hosed again.  The keyboard works while I'm in ddb, but once I go
back, I never get it back, and Ctl-Alt-ESC doesn't work any more
either.