Q - This is weird -- never seen this before. Has the tilde ~ character (SHIFT `, located in upper left,  just left of the 1 key) - caused this behavior before?

For example, when we try to enter a new Product Category and use the ~ character (SHIFT `) - it doesn't display. Then the system locks up the control for any further entry until you close the screen or hit the ENTER or ESCAPE key. 

A - Elliott V8 uses ~ as the potential function key for barcode scanning purposes. Please see the following article: 

http://support.elliott.com/knowledgebase/articles/731727-support-function-keys-through-scanning-barcode