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geekhack Community => New Members => Topic started by: BradTheGeek on Wed, 30 December 2015, 09:06:08

Title: Hello
Post by: BradTheGeek on Wed, 30 December 2015, 09:06:08
Old school geek here with a love for mech keyboards.  Hopping in to hopefully get some questions  answered and show of planned mods :)

I currently use a thermaltake poseidon Z on my main hom and work desktops but the key press is a little light.
I have a focus fk-2000 plus I found a year or two ago, but have never modified the AT to work with USB.
I just scored a Model M from a goodwill outlet store for about $3.  It was very dirty, but after a light cleaning it works great.  I do not know the exact model, as the sticker is gone from the bottom.  I will be posting somewhere to ask for ID help soon.  I plan to mode it with backlighting and fully refurbish it.
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: rowdy on Thu, 31 December 2015, 19:54:46
Welcome to Geekhack!

Converting AT to USB is simple - you'll just need an AT to PS/2 adapter, and a PS/2 to USB converter.  The former you'll probably find on eBay, for the latter I can recommend one of these: http://techkeys.us/collections/accessories/products/usb-to-ps2-serial-multimode-adapter

It's great how well Model M keyboards clean up, especially considering that many of them are around 30 years old!
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: BradTheGeek on Tue, 05 January 2016, 12:35:21
My understanding was that stacking AT -> PS2 -> USB did not work as there was some sort of missing encoding and you needed some active electronics for this.  I have the adapters at my shop, I should just try.  This thread I think has more, but I can't read it right now :)
Title: Re: Hello
Post by: livingspeedbump on Tue, 05 January 2016, 13:23:25
My understanding was that stacking AT -> PS2 -> USB did not work as there was some sort of missing encoding and you needed some active electronics for this.  I have the adapters at my shop, I should just try.  This thread I think has more, but I can't read it right now :)

AT should be fine, XT is a bit more complicated and requires something like a teensy to make work via USB.