geekhack
geekhack Projects => Making Stuff Together! => Topic started by: Thelab on Sat, 20 January 2018, 15:35:51
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Hi
I have a Toshiba T5200/100, and I want to connect the keyboard to modern motherboard using USB or PS2. Whatever is the easiest.
The keyboard has a 27 pin flat cable, is there a way to connect this to a modern motherboard without programming skills?
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Unlikely. The flat cable is probably connected to the switches directly. You would need a microcontroller.
If there are two (or more) unused lines in the cable, you could connect it to a Teensy 2.0 microcontroller card which has 25 I/O lines, otherwise you would best use a Teensy++ 2.0 which has more. Those have a USB mini-B port and a AVR-family microcontroller. Download source code and build environment for some firmware for AVR, reverse-engineer the keyboard matrix and program a specialisation of the firmware for your keyboard. (there are a few already in a subdirectory).
You are far from the first person to do something like this with an old keyboard from a laptop or electronic typewriter. TMK and QMK are the most popular firmwares. I think there is one made especially for old keyboards that can learn the matrix by "typing" instructions and asking you to press each key in turn but I don't remember which one that was...