keyboard problems

[cletus.yokel@hushmail.com]

I have a weird problem with my keyboard, but I'm not sure what to check 
to figure out the problem.

I have a desktop system, and the keyboard  works as expected in X and in 
the console. However when I ssh into my gateway box, the keyboards works 
fine in the commandline, but when I run a command like say nslookup, my 
backspace key stops working.

Both systems are debian 2.2 stable. The keypad problem  also occurs when 
I ssh to my boxes at home (telnet does the same BTW) from my sunbox at work.

I don't know much about terminal emulation, keymaps, and bindings, etc so 
what can I read to try to troubleshoot this? I have a typical i386 style 
keyboard with microsoft keys at home, and a type 5c sun keyboard at work.

Thanks.