Jon Freeman noted in the Mudcat Song Circle thread that I had looked at Accessibility Options as a method of providing a persistent CTRL key in PalTalk. These options are available in Windows98 and, I believe, also in Windows95. For anybody who's interested, the following is the procedure:

1. Click on Start/Settings/Control Panel. If Accessibility Options is one of the icons, go to step 4.

2. You will need the Windows install disk for this step. If Accessibility Options is not installed, double-click on Add/Remove Programs, then the 'Windows Setup' tab. Highlight 'Accessibility' by clicking on it, then click on 'Details.' When the 'Accessibility' window appears, click in the box next to 'Accessibility Options' to place a check mark in it. Accessibility Tools are not needed for this process. Click 'OK', then 'OK' again to install. A computer restart will probably be needed after the installation is complete.

3. After rebooting, if the Control Panel window is not open on the screen, open it by clicking Start/Settings/Control Panel as in step 1. Accessibility Options should be present in the Control Panel window.

4. Double-click the 'Accessibility Options' icon to open the program. This will open the 'Accessibility Properties' window. Note that the first item is 'Sticky Keys.' Click on the 'Settings' button for this option.

5. In the 'Settings for Sticky Keys' window, I suggest checkmarking boxes for 'Use Shortcut,' and 'Turn StickyKeys off if two keys are pressed at once.' The others may be checked according to your preference. Once you have set the options to your liking, click the 'OK' button.

6. Again on the 'Accessibility Options' window, check the 'General' tab. Under 'Automatic Reset' I suggest that you either turn the feature off or set the time setting to at least 10 minutes, to keep your mic from being turned off in the middle of a song.

7. When you have set the Automatic Reset function to your preference, click on 'Apply' then 'OK.' This completes the setup of Sticky Keys.

If you have set up Sticky Key's options as I suggested, when you are in PalTalk, StickyKeys can be activated by pressing the Shift Key five (5) times. Once activated, when you depress the CTRL key and release, it will act as if it remains depressed. Pressing any key will release the CTRL key, but will leave StickyKeys running. To turn off StickyKeys, press any modifier key (CTRL, ALT or SHIFT) along with any other key.

One caveat I would mention with this procedure. Once StickyKeys has been set up, it seems to load on my computer automatically at boot-up. This hasn't been a problem for me, since I just press a couple keys to turn it off, but I suppose if one forgot, it could cause some problems. Ya pays yer dime and ya takes yer chances. It's working well for me and, if you try it, I hope it'll work well for you too.