deskthority

For the DPH controller I'm trying to make a general purpose cap sense controller. But likely some extra work will be needed for each new type of cap sense. Likely the same sort of deal with xwhatsit's as well. There may be some issues though connecting the controller to the board though depending o...

Ah interesting. So they're grounded? Good information to know! That would produce a direct short to ground (briefly) :D Yes I might need to add another knob to the GUI util to control it. Either that or have multiple hex files/binaries for Kishsavers and everything else—I already do this through the...

Cool, I like sockets. I only avoided sockets on this because I was worried about clearance (the Model Fs are positively modern in packaging clearances compared with the beamsprings!). nourathar—what, you didn't feel you got enough punishment last time?! :P On the plus side you will have a healthy st...

I stand corrected! I assumed the point of cap sense was to reduce / remove physical contact. But instead it appears to be a way to get a cleaner signal than just slapping closed a direct metal switch. Not so much, you're right, it does remove/reduce physical contact. The foot doesn't have to touch ...

UNIX layout sounds like a bit of a misnomer. Half of the time when you used to use a UNIX machine you'd be talking to it with some 3rd-party glass TTY, so who knows where the keys would be. I'm a vim user—the reason for the crazy keys is because of the ADM3A terminal, which had escape where you'd no...

Well finally managed to find some time to add enough smarts to the software (util and firmware) to handle variable-sized keyboards of different sorts (everything was hard-coded before). I soldered one up, then attached it to my 122-key terminal. It works! (This post typed on it as proof :) ) Pretty ...

Thanks for tracing them through! Wonder what DVR stands for? Nope it's not an ISP header; the boards use the ATmega32U2, so come from the factory preloaded with a DFU bootloader, so I've never bothered to put an ISP header on them. The pinout I have is as follows: Layout: 2 4 6 1 3 5 1 = Vcc 2 = GPI...

Ahh, lovely stuff Murium. Looks like a piezo beeper I think, so I'm pretty sure it's only ever going to just beep annoyingly. The connector is a slight pain having all three pins on the bottom, as I have Vcc and GND at diagonal opposites. Might have to make a sort of adapter cable, or have the poor ...

Yep—shipping was painful! I think at the University of Auckland in the CS department they have (had?) a kind of display of early IBM gear that was used by said department long ago. Unfortunately when I was a student there I didn't know what a beamspring was so can't remember exactly what it was. Bes...

Bizarre!

Worst thing about eBay is geographically-impaired Americans

When I click on the `Shipping and payments tab' I see `The seller has not specified a shipping method to New Zealand. Contact the seller and request shipping to your location.' The `Contact the seller' words are a link where you can go through the usual process. The spacebar stabiliser might be rust...

Good news everyone! It works :D Here it is nestled in its home. You might note that the solenoid is loose; this is a 3727 keyboard, which don't come with solenoids. I stole the solenoid out of my 5251 (which lives at home), and left it sitting loose. photo 1.JPG And here is the fix (note green wire)...

This is `development' :) Challenges are fun. If everything works perfectly first time you don't learn anything. Now I know more than I ever would have otherwise about `current mirrors' and what `thermal resistance of junction to ambient (θja)' means and how to use the number :) Might require a few i...

So, slightly disappointing news; got the solenoid driver PCBs and assembled one in a state of excitement. It charges up nicely to 9.1V in a blink of an eye, drawing very little current while doing so. It also mashes the solenoid in a very satisfying manner. However, after turning on the solenoid, a ...

Yeah I thought about picking up the keylevers (they're nice and accessible), but then you need some crazy multi-sensor array (a bit like those USB typewriter conversion kits , which is a bit... well... huckery, for an IBM input device). A couple of incremental encoders on the cables which cause the ...

Sweet!

I see somebody else with VMS (vertical monitor syndrome). I'm 50% in remission for that (dual monitors, the other one is horizontal ). Jealous of the trackball. Suits the beamspring rather well I think.

Beam springs are only imitations of the selectrics. A certain number of selectric mechanisms were made into terminals with appropriate electrical connections. Clearly, you must appropriate one and adapt it to usb to use it as the ultimate keyboard. Perhaps frighteningly, I have somehow recently acq...

Terrific! Ha that's excellent! Yes those little SOT23-6 parts all look the same, buying a label maker and a compartmented box was a very good decision :) For future reference, to desolder those little SOT23-6 chips and similar, instead of trying to remove solder then lifting them off, you're better ...

Yeah they should be all on at once. I'd maybe check at 200 or so just in case, it's possible if there was an off-by-one error etc. then 1022 might wrap around already, but I don't think so. It kind of sounds like we might need to check some of the hardware now. Even with no keyboard plugged into the...

Autocalibrate won't work until you tell it which keys are which (it uses the dummy (PRESSED) and (RELEASED) scancodes as described above—these are nodes on the matrix which IBM left unused for actual keys, but presumably were used as I have used them, for calibration on startup). Try setting the thr...

Have you used the GUI util yet to set up the board? I'll paraphrase these instructions I sent the other day for using the GUI util: - Start increasing the threshold until keys you press register onscreen (the background surrounding the dropdown box will turn dark). I'd expect that number to be aroun...

Sorry I saw this a couple of hours late—glad you got this sorted! For future reference, if you have dfu-programmer installed (that's what I use), you can just type `make dfu' and it will compile and use dfu-programmer to flash it in one hit. Much more handy to use in a compile/test development cycle...

Ordered.

OK so I dropped the mounting points. I added three of my own around the edge of the board; one will need a cable from it to chassis GND, as per the beamspring controllers. If it won't mount sit nicely mounted by the ribbon (and maybe foam tape) alone, I'll have to fab up a steel bracket or two. Will...

Neat. Yes I've been using the STM32F1 and F4 series for a couple of electrical-industrial projects and they're quite lovely—aside from an argument I had with the first chip over its crystal driver (series resistor?!?). The only drama is 3.3V, which isn't ideal for strobing the columns (I=dv/dt), so ...

Cool!

I don't want to step on anybody's toes—all my stuff is open-source, so if what I do is of use to anyone else's capsense projects then anybody is welcome to take what they like

Wcass: do you think if the mounting holes were moved closer to the ribbon cable that would cause problems?

OK have a bit of a pickle here. Have done the layout; however as you can see from the picture we have a lot of wasted space. I've added the mounting holes for what I'll refer to as the `standard' Model F controller (what's in my PC-AT and 122-key terminal anyway). This leads to a chunk of wasted spa...

Cheers kps!. I'll modify it then. Thanks very much

Oh cool thread! Didn't know there was another capacitive keyboard controller project going on. Looking at the photos it looks very similar to something I heard floating around at Geekhack a year or so ago (opamps, multiplexers etc.). Bit of a different approach to what I've done with my boards but s...

Yeah I think it'd be a fairly major project on its own. I don't like cutting up this old gear; clean controller swapouts are one thing, but I as I've said before I feel some of this early IBM stuff (especially the beamsprings, but even many of the unusual Model F terminal boards) are more or less hi...