New Keyboard Need Some Info Can't Get It To Work

Skipoperler · 22 Jul 2018, 10:11

Hey everyone so I am very new to this forum, but I am glad to have found a community that seems to love old keyboards as much as I do. I have been slowly collecting over the past few years and don't plan on stopping. Just got this one today and it seems to be the oldest one I have obtained yet. Anyway I plugged this bad boy in and it seems to get power but nothing else seems to be working. Now I am running this on windows 10 so I won't be surprised if it won't work due to the OS or the keyboard itself may just not work. But I figured I would come to you guys to get some input. From what I have found out so far, it may have been for a old word processor but I haven't got a clue. Please excuse me if I do not use the proper terminology but I was thinking it may have no input due to the key scan codes. When it comes to key scan codes, is there a program that can detect that, which then allows me to direct them to the proper function (if that makes sense)?

Muirium · 22 Jul 2018, 14:04

Hey, welcome aboard.

There is indeed a way to convert from one scancode to another. A magic little something called Soarer’s Converter, which can even be installed inside your keyboard:

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

But first thing first: what connector is that on your cable? Big 5 pin DIN? Little PS/2? A non-PC looking board like this was indeed likely designed for a word processing system or some such. In which case it may speak a foreign protocol. Some of those are translated, but not all of them.

Skipoperler · 22 Jul 2018, 17:14

It's a 5 pin, and I use a converter to PS/2 to plug it in.

Muirium · 22 Jul 2018, 18:31

There’s more than you might think:

http://www.kbdbabel.org/conn/index.html

If the board were simply AT protocol, it should work with your adapter just fine. But it doesn’t. And the keyboard itself looks quite different from a regular IBM compatible layout.

Skipoperler · 22 Jul 2018, 19:06

Holy, that's a lot of different variants. Well I certainly can't pinpoint which is mine on the list so here's a picture of it if that helps at all.

scottc · 22 Jul 2018, 21:15

Looks like a standard DIN5 - might be XT protocol? You should try to build the Soarer's converter that Mu mentioned. If it's XT, it'll work right away with it.

Skipoperler · 23 Jul 2018, 02:46

scottc wrote: ↑Looks like a standard DIN5 - might be XT protocol? You should try to build the Soarer's converter that Mu mentioned. If it's XT, it'll work right away with it.

That's the problem, sadly I am not yet as technically inclined as I would like to be so I have not a clue on how to build one. I would love to buy one however if anyone is selling lol

Muirium · 23 Jul 2018, 10:17

Orihalcon is your man:

f-o-r-s-a-l-e-f58/most-soarer-s-convert ... 18797.html