The Decision Mate V was a machine introduced by NCR in the early 1980's. It uses a 100-key linear keyboard that also has a 9-pin joystick port. Unlike later machines that used Cherry-based keyboards, this appears to be their own engineering & manufacture.
Conversion:
Required items:
Teensy/Teensy++ or compatible for Soarer's Controller
Lots of wire, preferably a roll of 22ga solid core. Thin wire will not work well, even if it has a better fit.
Soldering/Desoldering: The external connector will have to be removed - as it will be bypassed to make room the USB cable. In addition, soldering may be required since a breadboard barely fits.
Clearance for perf/circuit boards:
Roughly 1.5cm length, controller-dependent width, ~1cm height(+/- up to 0.5cm)
Process (after disassembly):
1)Remove 8741 chip at U6. Go slowly and carefully since you will not be able to use the left side to create leverage.
2A)Wire up solid core wire as indicated from socket U6 to a small breadboard, prepared perfboard, or circuitboard:
- Wired up keyboard to breadboard Teensy++ for testing.
- wiredup.jpg (261.57 KiB) Viewed 2756 times
Pin 20 is lower right (GND)
Pins 21-24 are across from GND (Strobe lines). These must go to D3-D0.
Pins 27-34 are between strobe and +5v (3rd pin left of leftmost strobe, 6th pin right of +5v).
2B)Align Teensy on controller board so that the connector faces leftward - so that one can take advantage of the external connector.
3) Carefully assemble board so that wires remain in place.
4) Connect USB cable and route it under the board so that it goes to the keyboard port.
5) Reassemble strain relief.
6) Reassemble all remaining parts of board (screws to case))
7) If using Soarer's controller (easiest path), load this configuration:
Code: Select all
# NCR Decision Mate V (H0150-STD1-01-17) Keyboard
# Based off of Haata's 6112884.sc
# The native 8741 chip was replaced with a Teensy++ harness
# Not all slots will map in due to space reserved for joystick/sidecar port.
#
#
matrix
scanrate 1
debounce 5
debounce_method 0
sense_delay 32
blocking 0
# disable until wired unless you want noise.
sense_polarity 1
# Socket Pins 24 23 22 21
# D3 D2 D1 D0
muxstrobe_port PD3:0
# Socket Pin 34 33 32 31 30 29 28 27
sense PF7 PF6 PF5 PF4 PF3 PF2 PF1 PF0
# muxstrobe lines 7,11,15 are unassigned
# muxstrobe lines 12 and 14 have the "hole" in the middle two columns
muxstrobe 0 RCTRL F V PAD_7 PAD_9 4 R F5
muxstrobe 1 PAD_MINUS H N PAD_5 PAD_ASTERIX 6 Y F7
muxstrobe 2 LSHIFT S X PAD_1 PAD_ENTER 2 W F3
muxstrobe 3 LALT K COMMA F20 RIGHT 8 I F9
muxstrobe 4 NUM_LOCK D C PAD_8 PAD_SLASH 3 E F4
muxstrobe 5 BACKSPACE J M F19 DOWN 7 U F8
muxstrobe 6 TAB L PERIOD F G 9 O F10
muxstrobe 7 UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED
muxstrobe 8 PAD_0 CAPS_LOCK BACKSLASH EUROPE_2 PAD_PERIOD ESC LCTRL F1
muxstrobe 9 F16 SEMICOLON SLASH F18 UP 0 P F11
muxstrobe 10 PAD_PLUS A Z PAD_2 PAD_3 1 Q F2
muxstrobe 11 UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED
muxstrobe 12 SPACE G B PAD_4 PAD_6 5 T F6
muxstrobe 13 F15 QUOTE RSHIFT F17 LEFT MINUS LEFT_BRACE F12
muxstrobe 14 F14 BACK_QUOTE ENTER 9 0 EQUAL RIGHT_BRACE F13
muxstrobe 15 UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED UNASSIGNED
#muxstrobe 13 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8
#muxstrobe 13 Q W E R T Y U I
#muxstrobe 14 A S D F G H J K
#muxstrobe 15 Z X C V B N M L
end
# 00
macroblock
macro EUROPE_2
PRESS 0
PRESS 0
endmacro
endblock
- The keyboard in a more complete state, aside from missing keys.
- ncr_keyboard_a.jpg (951.31 KiB) Viewed 2756 times
- Closeup of the keys and switches. The keycaps are doubleshots.
- key_closeup.jpg (911.99 KiB) Viewed 2756 times
To Do:
Figure out joystick port. Right now, there are pins that go to the 4514 chip.
Figure out the effect of dip switches - since everything is calibrated to US layout.
Find an Escape keycap. Yes, they're doubleshots.
Thanks to:
Soarer, for the controller firmware and having plenty of patience to answer questions. That, and the 8048 conversion article helped as well.
Some folks offsite for finding the NCR documentation. This helped a ton towards getting things done.
