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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: treeleaf64 on Sun, 23 June 2019, 17:10:47
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I'm bidding for a Zenith Z-150 keyboard (XT) on Ebay. How would I convert this to usb? I don't believe it follows normal protocol, so I can't use a Soarer's converter with this.
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Yeah you can't use a Soarer's converter because the protocol is a bit different and also uses a reset line. You have to make your own soarer's converter with the 5 pin reset line connected. Also there are some issues with it like if you type to fast it drops keys etc last time i checked. May be fixed in the later versions of the firmware.
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Hi,
It's worth noting that there are two variants of the Z-150. One has a black badge, the other has a beige badge. Only the black badge version requires an active converter. The beige badge variant speaks AT protocol, so you can chain an AT -> PS2 converter with a PS2 -> USB converter (Although the F7 key won't work).
As mentioned, you can't use an off the shelf converter for the black badge, you'll have to make one from a Teensy 2.0 or Pro Micro. The modifications that you will have be done to the converter can be seen here: https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12972&sid=e66fc9359f1dc5a9ae5c874c61e6d623 (https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=12972&sid=e66fc9359f1dc5a9ae5c874c61e6d623).
TMK officially supports the Z-150, there is a thread here https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94649.msg2577469#msg2577469 (https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94649.msg2577469#msg2577469) and some documentation here https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/wiki/IBM-PC-XT-Keyboard-Protocol (https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/wiki/IBM-PC-XT-Keyboard-Protocol).
I didn't have the best luck with TMK, but that was a while ago. If you run into problems with mainline TMK, there is a fork of TMK specifically for the Z-150 here https://github.com/namato/tmk_z150 (https://github.com/namato/tmk_z150)
Hope that helps!
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Thanks guys! Appreciate it.