So I bought a keyboard

ollir

02 Feb 2018, 14:45

I found myself an old Commodore PC keyboard.
For some reason, I thought I was buying this: wiki/Commodore_PC-10_keyboard
while in reality, what I would get was this: wiki/Commodore_PC-5/PC-10_keyboard

The differences in the appearance are obvious, so I don't know how I missed them.
Here it is (needs some cleaning): https://imgur.com/a/b1jx3

The keyboard doesn't work because it's a XT keyboard, but I'd like to make it work because

a) It looks nice
b) The physical layout is win-win (I'm Finnish so nordic layout is nice, but it ALSO includes legends for US layout, which I mostly use these days even on my ISO boards)
c) I didn't yet have a board with vintage blacks and it's pretty much the only Cherry switch I've still had some interest in trying, so I would like to use them.

Is Soarer's converter what I want and are there other options? Is it available in EU? I googled around but basically always ended up on Ebay looking at the Soarer's converter. Ordering from the US I would have to pay some customs on top of the actual price, but I will order one if that's what I have to do. Just thought I'd ask first.

Thanks!

User avatar
Myoth

02 Feb 2018, 14:50

The soarer's converter seems to be the best option for you, it's available in EU since it's on ebay and you can get it shipped to you. Though you might pay customs indeed. but I think it's worth it as you can easily remap the keyboard and make it even more useful. I hope I helped you enough ! :)

User avatar
DustGod
Yet another IBM snob

02 Feb 2018, 15:51

Also, as an option, it is pretty easy to make it yourself.
The construction involves getting some Arduino implementation (I used the Leonardo Pro Micro, that costed me 3€ shipped, although it took a month to arrive :D but you could pay more and get it from a local seller) and soldering four contacts. The rest is software, you have to flash the Soarer's converter software into the chip, and it's pretty easy.

User avatar
Halvar

02 Feb 2018, 16:15

In case people begin to forget: Soarer's converter isn't hardware -- it's a piece of software (for AVR microcontrollers). You can download it for free from this forum.

workshop-f7/xt-at-ps2-terminal-to-usb-c ... t2510.html

You can buy very nice hardware that has Soarer's controller preinstalled thanks to orihalcon, but if you don't want to do that there are a number of cheap development boards that are based on the supported AVR chips.

ollir

02 Feb 2018, 16:49

Ok, thanks for the info all of you. This has been helpful!

Looks like I'm going the DIY route, seems like a fun little project, especially when there's no need to worry over the software yourself.

Post Reply

Return to “Keyboards”