geekhack
geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: ivanthetolerable on Sat, 23 January 2021, 16:24:36
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Does anyone know how I would convert it to usb? I think it's standard XT like a Model F so I was hoping I can use a teensy. Any advice?
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unfortunately i believe it's foam & foil.
you can easily tell by feel or removing a keycap
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Foam_and_foil
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Buckling_spring
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unfortunately i believe it's foam & foil.
you can easily tell by feel or removing a keycap
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Foam_and_foil
https://deskthority.net/wiki/Buckling_spring
Yes, I know it is. I'm building a sleeper inside the old case and wanted to make the keyboard usable. I was hoping to see if there's any guides to convert using a teensy
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i'd be more worried about reliability of the foam & foil, unless you are replacing them as well.
if it does use the XT protocol, you could use either hasu's or soarer's converters.
hasu https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=72052.0
soarer https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=17458.0
check this thread (http://www.vcfed.org/forum/showthread.php?56426-Compaq-Portable-I-corroded-keyboard), looks like they figured out the pinout of the connector
Female connector that plugs into the keyboard, fat side up:
[123]
|456|
1: GND
2: VCC (+12V)
3: GND
4: RST?
5: DATA
6: CLK
and this (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=45RncZIVeII) came up in the search and he repairs the foam & foil pads with replacements
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Soarer's converter running on a Teensy will do what you want. You can build it into the board or just throw together something like this:
[attach=1]
Step one will be to identify the wires at the plug. There should be Power, ground, and two data wires. If you can identify power & ground, that's enough to hook up to a Soarer's converter. The data wires can be switched back & forth 'till the board works. There's no risk if you get them backwards.
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Soarer's converter running on a Teensy will do what you want.
They should run on any board with an ATmega32u4, such as a Pro Micro clone -- which would be cheaper than the Teensy. Just be sure that the same port pins are available as the ones that the converter firmware uses. With Hasu's there are a few options for which pins to use. I think Hasu's would also work on a few other AVR microcontrollers.