deskthority

I don't think it is that simple as turning a converter around. I am not sure I remembering the names of the roles correctly, but USB has hosts and devices. Typically the host would be a PC/phone/game console etc. and be in control of the USB bus, while devices sit on the bus and respond to to the ...

I got the oscilloscope and a multimeter out and sat down to start testing, connected the keyboard and checked which keys were not working, and the number was now reduced to just the 'F' key. I think there may have been something affecting one of the columns but it may have been residual moisture ...

I have a Model F from a PC/XT. It had been working well for quite a while but some keys were beginning to get unreliable, needing extra force to get the keystroke recognised. My theory was that some dirt had got in between the flappers and the PCB so the flapper wasn't getting close enough to be the ...

I have literally never encountered that criticism. :)

More often, I read reviews such as this one that describes the original IBM Model Ms as "built like a tank".


I suppose everything is relative. The Model F feels virtually indestructible. Maybe the Model M has changed over the years. The ...

I hope you guys are taking the piss. :lol:


I think some of the words chosen are a bit strong. It is also the case that whatever you do, you won't please everyone.


Ever tried to buy a beamspring? Or typed on a Model F? These aren’t mainstream nor are they shy of four figure price tags. There ...

One keyboard is not objectively better than another - it's subjective. People have preferences and there is nothing wrong with that and there is really no reason to care if the majority of the PC industry is aligned to your own preferences or not, as long as you can find something you like.

This relates to an experience I had with my Model F XT and a converter based on a Teensy. It was connected to a KVM switch which was in turn connected to two PCs. It had been working fine for some time but one day, when I turned on of the PCs off, it started to play up with the other one - random ...

Yes, the converter is inside the moulding of the USB A plug. Here are some pictures:

Coeus, I just sent you a PM but can I buy one or two of those PCBs from you? ...or can you provide the gerbers? I'm not looking to sell them but just build one or two for myself.

Thanks!


The PCB in the ...

Earlier today, I noticed a small piece of lettuce between the keys of my IBM MOdel F XT keyboard. I held the KB upside down and shook to get it to fall out, which it did, but then afterwards I found the P key had stopped working. Removing the keycap I could wiggle the spring to make it work but it ...

Doom was significant in making the PC a gaming computer , for the masses. Before this, the PC had been seen as only a machine for the office.

So was the spread of PCs into the home market behind AOL starting to offer access to the Internet in the early 1990s? Perhaps, after that, Internet access ...

I am not sure how relevant this is, but when talking about the point where the sales from clone manufacturers overtook those from IBM, by talking about proportions, it is natural to think of IBM's sales shrinking and the clone manufacturer's sales increasing but, at the beginning, I suspect this was ...

I'm sure he was referring to when they were new. However, go find an F77 or kishsaver nowadays and see how much you'd spend to get one, if you can find one. I don't think comparing an F XT is a valid comparision, as these boards are reproductions of those 4704 Model F's


Maybe the F77 or ...

Elsewhere on the Web I found a Trello card implying that the "Soarer" who made these has disappeared and the IP status of his converters is murky. But that was dated some years back.


If you're interested in the legality of taking his code and making a converter from it, it would obviously ...

Hence why I said TMK as a Soarer's alternative and mapping matrix (thus bypassing original controller and protocol) to use QMK. Never said to use QMK as converter firmware (although a friend of mine is working on porting TMK converters to QMK for the easier macros, among other things).


I did ...

1. Yes, but I would never buy a prebuilt one as they are overpriced trash. You can build one yourself in 5 minutes for a quarter of the price.

Some people see value is a neat thing that has been professionally assembled. Yes, it may be sold for rather more than the cost of the parts but isn't ...

The new Model Fs are incredible value for what they are, they're cheaper than the Fs of yore even before you adjust for inflation. Just because overengineered 80's tech was considered junk for a while doesn't mean it wasn't expensive to make.


I assume you mean compared to an original Model F ...

Some light on the keyboard can be helpful indeed! I only have RGB on my ZSA boards so I went a little different route to help with my vintage boards because I prefer to keep my office relatively dim overall with bright light right where I need it.


I have an IBM Model F XT and I find the KB ...

What I would love is a good way for keyboards to send Unicode directly to the computers they connect to rather than just keycodes....

The X Window System (X11) sends key events to applications both a keycode (to identify which physical key was pressed) and a translation, i.e. if the context ...

You can get very close to a standard ANSI layout.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=48786.msg1048948#msg1048948


Yes, the 122 key terminal keyboard is close but the model F version is not common and those that are around are much more expensive than the recreated model F. The Model M ...

Aren't those two completely different systems for signal creation? One is based on the change on capacitance due to the hammer connecting two contact plates on the PCB and the other one on closing a circuit between conductive parts on the membrane. That probably means, the electronic circuits on ...

In the case of the stock photo you don't know the colour of the light illuminating it, how the camera was handling white balance or whether someone has fiddled with the colours in photo-shop afterwards.

The colour of the light does make a big difference too - in any whitish light there will be a ...

...I think the ABS spacebar color matches the PBT keycaps, so that's good, but I didn't trust my memory enough to tell if the retr0brighted case looked close to original or not....

If the PBT keycaps are all the others than the spacebar then I am not sure I agree. The spacebar looks a purer ...

cakeanalytics wrote: 03 Dec 2020, 18:47 Now imagine an office full of them.

I wonder how many people now have hearing defects or tinitus as a result.

This is the photo I refer to in my previous post.

I opened the larger version in evince and it is working fine for me. I did notice that the first photo in the "Photos of Brand New Models" looks quite distorted - the the one that says it is just a placeholder. Note that the front edge appears to be curved when I assume it is straight and whole ...

That's interesting. Though I have not done it myself I know it is possible to design a PCB and then have that design made up. Is the same true of a metal plate? I assume a case would be the most difficult part as most cases are moulded and making the moulds has a lot of set-up cost.

Pull up is different on clock in the keyboard because if you look closely, clock is going to INT and DB5, while data only goes to DB6.


It looks like DB5 and DB6 are being used as outputs here. The open collector buffers in IC2 are drawn so the signal goes through them as if they are an arrow, i ...

Interesting, you have an 8049, mine has an 8749. Generally the same but mine is technically erasable and reprogrammable. Maybe they are slightly different in their high/low thresholds?


I assume you're basing that on the fact that mine is in a plastic package because I can't read a part number ...

This might be interesting too: http://www.kbdbabel.org/schematic/kbdba ... pc_kbd.pdf

Here are some pics: the second one is just a crop of the first by focuses in on what I think may be the circuit driving the cable. It's hard to tell because am unable to decode the chip numbers.