Found a (Swe/Fin) laptop keyboard with Alps integrated domes. Ideas what to do with it?

[Jimi14]

Bought this 1987 Unicott Citylap 30 (believe its a clone of the COPAM LT-386SX/P) i while back for reasons i'm not really sure of. It proved to be kinda busted though as it had suffered a battery leakage (the fan starts and the HDD tries to spin up but that's it) and I'm not sure if it can be fixed. At least not with my skill.

In either which case though i found myself really loving the keyboard which makes use of Alps (mount) integrated domes with Doubleshots. Feels like a shame to simply sell it alongside the broken laptop but I'm also honestly not really sure what to do with it. Desolder the switches and transfer them to some other (Carbon contact?) keyboard? Try and find out if it speaks AT trough its IDE style ribbon connector (which must also carry the caps/num/scroll LED signals as those are on the chassi rather than on the keyboard) and put it into a shell? Not sure if either are doable to be honest. Might just be better to sell the complete laptop for spares after all.

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[Findecanor]

The ribbon probably carries the keyboard matrix. You'd have to reverse-engineer that and program a microcontroller for it.

[Muirium]

Yes, I have a Zenith Supersport keyboard module like that which does indeed have the matrix exposed on the ribbon cable.

Making your own controller is actually quite straightforward:

viewtopic.php?f=7&t=6767

QMK is worth a look, too. I just don’t know that one as well as Soarer’s controller.