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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: vespertine on Mon, 21 October 2019, 18:21:36

Title: what connector is this???
Post by: vespertine on Mon, 21 October 2019, 18:21:36

I want to use this keyboard with my modern pc and it has some weird connector ive never seen...need to know how to get it converted to ps2 so I can use a ps2 to usb converter and use it with my pc

Title: Re: what connector is this???
Post by: Findecanor on Mon, 21 October 2019, 19:00:04

That looks like a keyboard for the Japanese FM TOWNS computer platform. I have seen converters for the other way around (PS/2 keyboard in old computer) at least, on some Japanese retro-computing accessory sales sites.

Title: Re: what connector is this???
Post by: vespertine on Mon, 21 October 2019, 19:30:14

can I just...cut that connector off and attach it to a ps2 lead?

Title: Re: what connector is this???
Post by: Findecanor on Tue, 22 October 2019, 12:49:53

I doubt it. There is probably a reason why it has eight leads and not four, and the converter I have seen were boxes: not simply cables.

I think Fujitsu first had their own operating system on it, and only later made them MS-DOS and Windows-compatible.
Applications on the PCs with AT and PS/2 ports never interfaced the keyboard bus directly, but talked to a microcontroller on the system board, which had translated the AT/PS/2 scancodes into XT scancodes. I suspect that Fujitsu's hardware would have done something similar to make MS-DOS programs work.