Hi, everyone.

 

Well, it turns out that Albert's suggestion did the trick, at least for now.

 

I turned off the laptop, took the battery out, and unplugged the DC power
supply connection.  I then let the computer sit for about 15 minutes to make
sure everything was cleared from the machine's memory.

 

When I plugged things back in and re-booted the machine, things began
working again.

 

I am not sure this will solve my issue in the long term, since I probably
really do need to think about replacing this old Windows XP logging
computer, but at least I'm up and running again for now.

 

Thanks to all for such a quick response to my rather desperate plea for help
here.  (LOL)

 

Tom Behler: KB8TYJ