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Author Topic: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter  (Read 1516 times)

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Offline wendell

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VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 02:05:46 »
This is more impressively retro than using a Model M with a PS/2 to USB converter. Now, I would pay for one of these.


His blog gives thorough technical discussion.

http://www.loomcom.com/blog/
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Offline 1391406

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Re: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« Reply #1 on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 08:56:06 »
Wow, cool!
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Offline 1391406

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Re: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« Reply #2 on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 08:58:09 »
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Offline SpAmRaY

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Re: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« Reply #3 on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 10:08:26 »
Interesting.
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Offline dorkvader

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Re: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« Reply #4 on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 12:29:38 »
I spy a teensy!

Interesting challenge: to go through all that trouble for a DEC VT100, shows some serious dedication to a keyswitch (stackpole I think) that's not often well regarded. These keyboard protocol reverse engineering projects are all interesting, and this shows some great detail.
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Offline rootwyrm

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Re: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« Reply #5 on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 14:24:57 »
Quote from: dorkvader on Wed, 31 July 2013, 12:29:38
I spy a teensy!

Interesting challenge: to go through all that trouble for a DEC VT100, shows some serious dedication to a keyswitch (stackpole I think) that's not often well regarded. These keyboard protocol reverse engineering projects are all interesting, and this shows some great detail.

Yeah, VT-100 board would be stackpole. Reverse engineering it really is NOT that hard though. One of the key aspects of the VT family is that the keyboards are all serial. And the protocol is actually extremely well documented, because we used to do that - document things. Properly. Scancodes might not be, but port settings always are.
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Offline dorkvader

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Re: VT-100 keyboard with a USB adapter
« Reply #6 on: Wed, 31 July 2013, 15:46:38 »
Yeah, he has a lot of the documentation posted on his blog. It's good to see that he was able to put it to use.

I know my oscilloscope from the 1950's (telequiptment D52, totally worth the $5) has everything from a parts list to the PCB trace patterns in the manual. I like good documentation and more never hurts.

Fortunately there are some people who try to keep up the trend. Sadly they are the exception rather than the rule.
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