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geekhack Community => Keyboards => Topic started by: plobster on Sun, 08 December 2013, 18:58:32
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I found a vintage computer on the side of the road, an Amstrad 640t
Whilst doing some research, it mention that some models were completely incompatable to IBMbased cords due Amstrad not having the Patents back in the day..
Does an adaptor exists for this keyboard?
Images available here:
http://imgur.com/a/em29P
Thanks for your help,
Plobster
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From what I can see, it is an XT system, but requires a physical conversion to be used. If you can find the right female connector, you could probably convert it with Soarer's Converter.
I'll see if I can find the pinout somewhere.
See the following posts for information that isn't just guessing based on some Google searches.
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As far as I make out about old Amstrad, is the keyboard controller is actually inside the computer, not in the keyboard. So I suppose you could use something like a teensy to get it working. Most people I have come across didn't have much nice to say about the feeling of these keyboards though. Personally I think they feel even worse than Cherry MY. If I was in your case, and had a whole system I think I would rather just get the whole thing working since I enjoy retro computers and find them interesting. They are often quite a lot easier to repair than modern computers if you can manage to find parts for sane prices.
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Lots of info on John Elliot's site (http://www.seasip.info/AmstradXT/pc1512kbd.html), and check the links at the end for protocol info.
It is just data and clock, but the data is valid for only a short time. That means it would be quite tricky to capture it with a software approach - my converter uses an interrupt for the clock and then reads the data, and this would only give a couple of microseconds to do that, so I think another approach would be required. (There's no start bit either, compared to PC/XT, but that's a minor issue by comparison).