Zenith Z-150 XT Conversion to USB

[treeleaf64]

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.

[Sup]

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.

[fer.real]

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.

TMK officially supports the Z-150, there is a thread here 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. 

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

Hope that helps!

[treeleaf64]

Thanks guys! Appreciate it.