[Ebay] IBM Model M Bluetooth-USB-Hybrid Controller Replacement Kit

[chanceman42069]

+++Unless otherwise noted, this offer is permanently active+++

All common variants of the Model M keyboard are supported!

Upon placing an order, please let me know the number of FFC sockets you need: three (16+8+4 pins) or two (16+12 pins).

— supported operating systems: Windows, Linux, Android, iOS, Mac OS X
— convenient, no hassle drop-in replacement
— controller supports USB or Bluetooth 4.0/BLE connection (flip switch to select)*
— use any 3.7V Li-Po/Li-Ion battery you like
— internal battery charger will recharge battery when USB cable is connected
— maximum battery life during normal operation: ca. 7 days (500 mAh battery, not included)
— device will go to sleep after 1 minute when USB mode has been selected and no USB cable is connected
— fully programmable, custom key mappings, command line tool for easy keymap configuration, up to 6 layers are possible
— up to 24 macro keys (6 keys + 8 modifiers each) suppported, configurable from CLI or Fn keys
— standard USB/Bluetooth HID 6-key rollover
— LED status indicators dimmable separately for BT and USB mode (either by dedicated brightness keys on a Fn
layer or from CLI)
— adjustable debounce period (1-255 ms, configurable from CLI)



You can choose between different versions and additional accessories:

— controller board 80€ (both USB and BT components) / 75€ (only USB, no BT components)

Mandatory accessories M122:

— M122 daughterboard 10€
— jumper cables 20P + 8P 10€

Mandatory accessories Lexmark/Unicomp Model M

— daughterboard to connect matrix (LEDs included) 10€
— jumper cables 16P + 8P 10€

Optionally available:

— Li-Po/Li-Ion battery 2000 mAh (+15€)
— LED daugherboard with low current low voltage status LEDs, green/amber/younameit (+10€)
— JST-EH connector four wire cable to connect LED daughterboard 5€
— cruciform Philips replacement case screws made from stainless steel for easy maintenance (+1€)
— BT-USB-bridge/BT-USB HID Proxy dongle (+20€)

The BT-USB dongle is capable of acting as a 'BT-USB bridge' along with my controller. The dongle can be used as a regular BT adapter that's controlled by the OS BT stack, but it can also function as stand-alone BT host that supplies its own BT stack. The modes of operation can be switched by software, too, if necessary. In the latter mode of operation, the dongle will present itself as a regular USB HID keyboard to the host system while pairing and bonding to the BT client device, in this case my controller, will happen automagically. That way you can connect the keyboard to any USB-compatible system without any additional hassle. That might come in handy especially on legacy systems without any BT support.

International shipping as a registered letter (with tracking) (15€).

Please don't hesitate to ask if you have any questions, I will be glad to answer them to the fullest of my capability.
Bitte zφgern Sie nicht, mich zu kontaktieren, wenn Sie Fragen haben.
S'il vous plaξt, n'hesitez pas de me contacter si vous auriez de questions.

Just holler at me if you're interested. I prefer transactions outside of Ebay, of course, so the listed price is not definitive, I can take a discount outside of Ebay.

Contact me at jaygheezy[at]hotmail.com or PM me on DT.

[prokeycaps]

bump

[Jukbo]

Hi, I'm new to geekhack forum. I got registered just because I'm interested in your interface. I want to buy one directly from you. Could you please contact me?

Thanks!

Jukbo

[nathanchere]

Why does this not have more (or any) love? This is one of the best model M projects ever IMO. I wish you had these before I sold my model M's .

[chanceman42069]

Why does this not have more (or any) love? This is one of the best model M projects ever IMO. I wish you had these before I sold my model M's .

Thanks, I appreciate it. As to why it doesn't get more love, I don't know. Too expensive perhaps. It doesn't exactly qualify as a 'community' project I suppose. Then again, many Model M enthusiasts are quite capable of brewing their own, while others are older dudes who've been using that board since it came out and may not be appreciative of modifications of this nature.

On a sidenote, what do you mean by 'love'? More replies? It is kind of puzzling though: although this thread has been viewed more than 5000 times, I've only received like 3 enquiries regarding this project. Things are looking much better on DT, I gotta admit.

[osrix]

Wish Id seen this before now, I'll get one if I ever *finally* get myself an SSK!  for now handheld scientific box is doing well but nowhere near as slick as this. Love it B) Also I dont know if you would or not, but I could really do with one of the Bt bridge dongles , my wife doesnt have privilege enough to use a BT keyboard on her work machine so a dongle like this would be great for her. 

[chanceman42069]

This thread has been viewed 9465 (!!!) times - and so far I've only received a handful of enquiries (any kind of enquiry, not solely commercial). How is this possible? Who or what is causing the views counter to increase so rapidly while there doesn't seem to be a lot of real human interest in this thread at all? Beats me!

[osrix]

if maybe like me, then read the post take a look on ebay. I would say it is a tood price for the work involved for you to develop a product. I have a BT ps2 adapter from handheld scientific which lasts 2 hrs when plugged into the Model M.  From what I read your design doesnt suffer like this and so is of interest to me

Im now waiting to find an SSK before I buy from you. maybe stuff like that for most people. I love what youve done here and want to support, Bought a bridge from you another great solution!     

[anthorix]

This thread has been viewed 9465 (!!!) times - and so far I've only received a handful of enquiries (any kind of enquiry, not solely commercial). How is this possible? Who or what is causing the views counter to increase so rapidly while there doesn't seem to be a lot of real human interest in this thread at all? Beats me!

maybe cus wireless things are common for portable lightweight objects and a model M isnt gonna see much transportation so its kind of a mismatched feature.

[chanceman42069]

maybe cus wireless things are common for portable lightweight objects and a model M isnt gonna see much transportation so its kind of a mismatched feature.

yes, I agree. Broadly speaking, it doesn't make much sense. The controller design is not limited to the Model M though. I actually wanted a universal keyboard controller with both a USB and a BT interface to build custom compact size Alps keyboards. The Model M is just the first real application for my design - because (at least at the time) no other replacement controller project for M-series keyboards featured BT by default, not even TMK. Hasu wrote somewhere on GH that it could be added, but not easily. BT is still a worthwhile feature for Model M SSK owners because it will free up even more space on the desk since there will no longer be an need to use a heav coiled PS/2 cable.

Jfyi, I'm not upset about poor sales, I'm just puzzled why there is such a significant discrepancy between the number of visits and the number of replies. If a thread has been viewed 10,000 times you would expect more people to have left a comment or anything. For comparison, the attached picture has only 630 clicks. I suppose some kind of bot or spider or whatnot is causing the thread view counter to increase steadily, not human activity.

[osrix]

hey man are you still selling these kits?

[chanceman42069]

yes, the project is alive and well, people just never leave any feedback after buying a kit, no clue why

[OldNuc]

I received the controller board in July and planned to have it installed before the end of that month. Life intruded and I am starting the simple install process this week. I do not expect any issues.

[nathanchere]

I saw a cheap Model M locally and couldn't resist. As long as it scrubs up OK, I'll happily buy one of these and spread some reviews around if it helps get these moving.

maybe cus wireless things are common for portable lightweight objects and a model M isnt gonna see much transportation so its kind of a mismatched feature.

Bluetooth isn't just for portability. The HHKB which never leaves my desk is connected by Bluetooth because it makes the desk less cluttered and lets me effortlessly switch between different laptops without swapping cables, or go from work to typing on my phone or tablet when for example I want to reply to a long message. I have a Bluetooth keyboard and trackball hooked up to my media centre which never leave the lounge.

[Harinis]

There isn't a link anywhere on this page unless I'm wrong?
Kinda hoping I am wrong because I want to see the listing but I've clicked on everything!

[Harinis]

This thread has been viewed 9465 (!!!) times - and so far I've only received a handful of enquiries (any kind of enquiry, not solely commercial). How is this possible? Who or what is causing the views counter to increase so rapidly while there doesn't seem to be a lot of real human interest in this thread at all? Beats me!

Perhaps it's because you're asking to be paid more for a controller for an IBM Model M than it costs to buy an IBM Model M.
And so far your attitude is not exactly endearing.
When asked on DT: "no offense but why does it cost so much?"
Your reply stated: "if you can brew something together yourself, do it, then you won't have to pay for somebody else's labor. The parts only cost about 25€ (I can give you a precise listing if you like)."
So you're saying that it is actually quite cheap but you're charging a bomb because you think you deserve some kind of minimum wage labour costs for a homemade controller that costs more than the keyboard itself.
So if you're charging a massive, profit making mark-up for time and labour like a business would, I assume you're offering a 3 year warranty and full return and refund with a year of servicing and parts as a business does too?

[chanceman42069]

No, there is no link because I would rather not use Ebay for a transaction. This thread has been around for a while and I cannot simply move it to the artisan section. I asked for persmission to start my own artisan thread, but I never got a reply from the powers that be.

Thanks for your critical remarks. Yes, you're right, I'm not running a business in the narrow sense of the word, which is precisely the reason why my prices are kind of highish. I'm trying my very best to offer a quality product and support though, even though this is a one-man-one-day-at-a-time kind of project. I cannot offer mass production prices because there is no mass market for this kind of product. If you're looking for an analogy, think of spare parts for vintage cars or espresso machines. The analogy fails with respect to the relation of the total value of the object to the spare part, but the cost of a custom made spare part for a vintage device will still be disproportionately higher than the cost of a spare part for a contemporary car or espresso machine. If I could sell 1000+ units I would lower the prices accordingly, but I cannot.

As far as your other opinions regarding the duties of businesses towards their customers are concerned, that's all good, but what do you suggest I do? We're not talking about a collaborative effort of a group of people that can take turns, but a single individual. I've created the firmware and the layout and everything and I've had my fun, learning experience, whatever, OK. So what happens after I've had my fun and want to move on to the next little project? Do I upload everything to Github and forget about it? What happened to similar projects that were only created and developed for the developer's personal amusement? They were abandoned and are now mostly forgotten, some of the developers seem to have mysteriously 'disappeared'. Well, where did they go? Here's my theory: they 'disappeared', because they got overwhelmed by requests and support enquiries, but they never made a single dime, or close to nothing. So as the economic theory of 'opportunity costs' would have it, they simply closed down shop so they could hitherto devote their time and effort to activities that would generate income.

Anyway, the point I'm trying to make is this: in order to perpetuate the development, availability and support of a given product, some sort of incentive is required that goes beyond personal amusement. I would be hard-pressed to specify exactly how long I take to make one controller board, but I think it's a safe estimation that the 50€ of 'profit', as you say, correspond to an average wage of about 10€/h. I do not take 5 hours to mount components, but there are other task involved in preparing a board as well, including preparatory work, cleaning, uploading the firmware, testing, wrapping everything up for shipping, taking the parcel to the post office. You seem to be entertaining the idea that all these peripheral tasks do not qualify for recompense, but they are necessary for the completion of the manufacturing and delivery process nonetheless.
Then there are also the long-term commitments, if you will: developing, maintaining, improving of the layout, the firmware and the host application, as well as helping people in all sorts of ways and answering all sorts of questions not related to advertizing and selling. The main reason there's only a couple of such DIY projects out there as opposed to 100s is probably, in my opinion, that the average computer engineer simply cannot be bothered. It's just not worth their while and there is not going to be any kind of recompense on the level necessary to pay for an engineer's labor.

Finally, I feel that some sort of clarification is necessary here as far as the meaning of the word 'profit' is concerned. 'Profit' is a category that pertains to capitalist enterprise. Capitalist enterprise is based on the exploitation of the laborers by the capitalist, the owner of the means of production, as far as Marx is concerned. The capitalist advances a sum of money, invests the money in means of production, which act as capital if and only if they are used to extract surplus labor. The capitalist then sells the commodities to realize the value that the force of labor, his employees, have added to the means of production, as profit. In reality, this process is more complicated and mediated, but for the sake of argument an abstract scheme of the process of valorization will do.

Even without Marx, in a more textbookish sense, the category 'profit' still requires that a sum of money is advanced for the mere purpose of incrementing that sum, turning money into more money - but it is a necessary condition that the 'profit' not represent an amount of labor expended by the monied person advancing the sum to be capitalized, at least as far as my understanding is concerned.

The form of 'profit' that serves as the paradigm for the category in everyday language is the profit made in trade, which appears at the surface of the social process as some sort of 'mark up' or 'addition' to the price of a given commodity, and that is all a working trader needs to know of it. Of course we're free to abstract from the concrete social relation and refer to all kinds of 'surplus' as 'profit'. A peasant in a rural country may decide to grow more crops than necessary to feed his family and trade the surplus produce, and may consider the surplus his 'profit'. But that's not 'profit' in the ordinay sense of the word, it's just a recompense for surplus produce that the family of the peasant will not consume themselves.

The crucial point to understand here is this: 'profit' is not a form of 'recompense' for anyone's labor, it isn't a mere 'mark-up' either, as you say, but it goes beyond the purpose of my reponse to give you a more detailed explanation. It is not correct to refer to any kind of 'surplus' as 'profit', but it is wrong and outright foolish to refer to the recompense of somebody's labor as 'profit' merely because it increments his income.

[morgul12]

Perhaps it's because you're asking to be paid more for a controller for an IBM Model M than it costs to buy an IBM Model M.

I dare you to find a Model M that was manufactured with bluetooth capability.

I have one of these controllers, and it was worth every penny.  Awesome couch keyboard -- my Model M SSK with Jorn's BT-USB controller.  Previously I had used an external PS/2-to-USB adapter which was okay but ran out of battery power very quickly, in addition to requiring a cable to be connected to the keyboard (making the whole thing bulkier).  Now I have an SSK that will last MUCH longer before needing a recharge, and it has no cables.

[SDS604]

And so far your attitude is not exactly endearing.

I may be new to this forum but your attitude is the **** one.

I challenge you to come up with something comparable for the Model M that is compatible with basically every variant and is as incredibly well supported.
Once you realize the time and effort this takes perhaps you would not be so quick with the criticism.
Nobody else is putting in the time and work to develop custom control boards for 35 - 40 year old keyboards.
OP could double his price and I would still be on-board, thankful that this was even an option.
I've been in touch with OP and this project is what spurred me back into mechanical keyboards specifically and retro computing in general.

I've put my money where my mouth is, can you say the same?

[rdibley]

This thread has been viewed 9465 (!!!) times - and so far I've only received a handful of enquiries (any kind of enquiry, not solely commercial). How is this possible? Who or what is causing the views counter to increase so rapidly while there doesn't seem to be a lot of real human interest in this thread at all? Beats me!

Perhaps it's because you're asking to be paid more for a controller for an IBM Model M than it costs to buy an IBM Model M.
And so far your attitude is not exactly endearing.
When asked on DT: "no offense but why does it cost so much?"
Your reply stated: "if you can brew something together yourself, do it, then you won't have to pay for somebody else's labor. The parts only cost about 25€ (I can give you a precise listing if you like)."
So you're saying that it is actually quite cheap but you're charging a bomb because you think you deserve some kind of minimum wage labour costs for a homemade controller that costs more than the keyboard itself.
So if you're charging a massive, profit making mark-up for time and labour like a business would, I assume you're offering a 3 year warranty and full return and refund with a year of servicing and parts as a business does too?

Sorry, but you're wrong. 

It costs 25 euro in parts?  Great.  Go out and buy the parts and put one together yourself.  It sounds like you've already figured out the parts list, and from the pictures you see on the web, you can probably piece together a bit of the circuit directly from what he's done to save you a little time.  To be sure, you'll want to go find the circuit for your particular keyboard so that you understand the connections to the keyboard.  Design your circuit, then send it out to have the board fabricated.  I recommend OSH Park if you're in the United States, but I'm sure there are others internationally.  With them, it'll cost you $5 per square inch for the board, and you could probably replicate what he's done with a 7.5 sq-in board, or $37.50 (33.59 euro).  Shipping is free.  Then build your board and spend a few days troubleshooting it.  If you're like most of us, you won't get it right the first time and you'll have to either patch the board or have a second one fabricated for another $37.50 (33.59 euro).  Then spend a week or so programming and debugging the microcontroller using what you learned about the connectors on your keyboard.  If you don't already know how to use the Bluetooth module, then spend another week working out that detail.  Either keep your module as-is, or spend several more weeks programming the interface software for the PC so that you can configure macros and key mappings.  I don't know how much it would actually cost you to do this yourself, or how much time it would take, but I doubt it would be worth the price he's asking for this adapter.
Unless you've done a project like this before, you don't realize the amount of effort (and cost) that goes into the design, along with working out the bugs to get the point where this product is.  If you're doing a project like this just for yourself, you can cut some corners.  Maybe your circuit board isn't professionally made, or you have patch wires on it to fix mistakes, or you have to connect a programmer to your board every time you want to reconfigure something.  This might save you a lot of time, but the basic work you have to do is still very substantial. 

As for the cost, consider this:

The point of the video is that you need to take into consideration all of your costs when pricing the product, even the cardboard boxes and shipping labels.  You also have to consider that you have to buy enough boards and parts up front to get bulk prices, so take that 25 euro and multiply it by 50 or 100 and that gets very expensive.  You'll only recover that money when you sell all of the adapters.  Circuit board fabrication can be expensive, and often they require a flat fee along with the per-board charge. 

I'm sorry that you think he's charging too much.  But when you take into consideration what it actually costs to put one of these together, you would realize that this is a reasonable price for a niche product that won't be around forever.  Save up and buy one while you still can, or spend the time and money to build one yourself.

[rdibley]

I'm writing this on my newly installed BLUSB adapter!  Just some feedback to those out there who might be on the fence about this.  The adapter is of very high quality.  The picture with the blue circuit board is what you get, and it's very well made.  It fit tightly in my keyboard without any trouble.

As for the ordering process, I contacted Jorn and he got back to me within a day.  We exchanged several emails, where I would send him pictures of my keyboard and ask questions, and he did his best to answer my questions and help me understand all of the options.  A lot of it was to help me understand what I needed and what I didn't need for my particular keyboard.  He didn't try to upsell, and I dropped some items off my list after I understood things better.  He brought up the battery, inquiring on which one I planned to use, so that he could put on a matching header on the board.  He then fabricated the board according to my requirements and shipped it out a day later.

I don't have a battery to test out the Bluetooth as of yet, but I'll do that sometime next week.  As of right now, the keyboard works great right out of the box.  I'll have to play around with the macros and the configuration tool later.  Overall, this was a very positive experience, and Jorn is interested in putting out a quality product and making sure that you get what you need. 

[gtxtom]

So I'd just like to post a bit about my experiences in buying this kit. Jorn was super quick to answer any of my dumb questions. I'm not really a keyboard guy, but I like the Model M style and I like well-built things. I picked my keyboard up off of eBay and got to contacting Jorn about getting his kit installed. After I got the kit, I was having trouble mapping the keys. He was right there with me for the few days I took getting it all mapped properly. The keyboard has been working excellently and it's exactly what I wanted. I got my own panel mount USB connector and made an opening in (made a mess of  ) the body.

[HaGeh]

Hi everybody!

I can't praise this enough!
A bit more than 2 years ago I finally had to switch to a new machine and since then I couldn't use my Model M anymore. All experiments with (pretty cheap) USB-adapters failed. In the last weeks I approached the idea of getting a Unicomp, but decided to look for for a way to bring 'my' keyboard back to life. I found this thread (can't tell why I didn't find it earlier - maybe I searched to explicitely for an adapter) and decided to give it a go.
Jφrn answered quickly to all of my questions (partially pretty dumb Qs, I got some stuff in the OP wrong...), and since yesterday my Keyboard is back to it's place on the desk 
Everything worked out of the box, no config necessary.
I can tell you it was quite a more emotional moment than I did expect.
Cheers, Jφrn! 

[chanceman42069]

Just letting everybody this project is alive and well and controller boards are available to anyone interested, just drop me a message!

[Nem84]

I just wanted to drop some feedback following my purchase of the controller.

(a) Jorn is great seller and provided me with priceless support, answering all of my questions - silly or not.
(b) The controller is superb int terms of quality.
(c) The installation is super-easy. Completed in 10 minutes, including soldering of battery connector.
(d) The performance is indeed really good, if you consider typical latency of any BT device (that's how I tested the board).

Overall, I only have good words for the product. And BTW - the comments about highish price don't convice me. This must have taken work to develop, put together, etc. I think the deal Jorn offered me is very decent indeed.

Cheers and carry on with a good work Jorn!

[aaaaa]

Hi! I’m new to specialised keyboards. Today I just bought my first mechanical keyboard: a second hand massdrop x olkb Preonic.

I’m interested adding turning this USB keyboard into a bluetooth-compatible one so that I can more easily use it with my iPad. Would the adapter kit work in my case? I’ve head about the Handheld Scientific BT-500 keyboard adapter, but I’m curious what other options are availble.

[Maledicted]

Hi! I’m new to specialised keyboards. Today I just bought my first mechanical keyboard: a second hand massdrop x olkb Preonic.

I’m interested adding turning this USB keyboard into a bluetooth-compatible one so that I can more easily use it with my iPad. Would the adapter kit work in my case? I’ve head about the Handheld Scientific BT-500 keyboard adapter, but I’m curious what other options are availble.

The BT-500 is probably your best option unless there's something specifically for the olkb Preonic. You can bust it out of the case and wire it internally with a battery, if all of that will fit. Probably not in your case.

Doing an internal mod like that is not trivial, as you can see in this post I made on a frankenboard I created.

Also, the place to ask about this would probably be a new thread in the Keyboards or Making Stuff Together categories.

[AgressiveStreetLamp]

Hi there. I have a 1992 model M. I am interested in your wireless mod kit. Are you still selling them? Is shipping to the USA available?

I cannot seem to send a dm as a new member…

[chanceman42069]

Yes, I'm still making them. As a matter of fact I'm happy to announce that I will be taking new orders again about a week from now. =^)

[CyCo]

Why does this not have more (or any) love? This is one of the best model M projects ever IMO. I wish you had these before I sold my model M's .

Thanks, I appreciate it. As to why it doesn't get more love, I don't know. Too expensive perhaps. It doesn't exactly qualify as a 'community' project I suppose. Then again, many Model M enthusiasts are quite capable of brewing their own, while others are older dudes who've been using that board since it came out and may not be appreciative of modifications of this nature.

On a sidenote, what do you mean by 'love'? More replies? It is kind of puzzling though: although this thread has been viewed more than 5000 times, I've only received like 3 enquiries regarding this project. Things are looking much better on DT, I gotta admit.

What is DT?

[chanceman42069]

What is DT?

DT = Deskthority

[CyCo]

Hmm, havent heard of that site a lot before.

Seems to be a forum like GH?

[Maledicted]

Hmm, havent heard of that site a lot before.

Seems to be a forum like GH?

If you're into vintage keyboards and switches, Deskthority is the hub. Most of the people into that stuff at all on Geekhack have either been here forever or are trying to help spread the love for vintage boards and mechanisms or new designs that are actually innovative instead of the new slightly different MX variant of the week. And most of those people are also on Deskthority.