Thomson TO9 Keyboard

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TNT

08 Sep 2020, 15:23

Hey guys,

anyone got experience with one of these boards, by any chance?
to9.jpg
to9.jpg (137.24 KiB) Viewed 8425 times
to9 2.jpg
to9 2.jpg (86.21 KiB) Viewed 8425 times
It's from a Thomson TO9 Computer and has a 6 pin RJ-style connector. It's quite nice looking and has vintage MX Blacks, so it'd be nice to get it working somwhen at least...

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Myoth

08 Sep 2020, 17:59

Awesome! I acquired one of these as well recently, in AZERTY and have been waiting for some spare time to post about it. So we share the same struggle, I imagine it's going to be rather hard to convert, considering the poor documentation about the keyboard protocol.

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TNT

08 Sep 2020, 18:10

Yeah, I couldn't find anything about this on the Wiki, or other keyboard enthusiast sites. Even on Youtube, nothing specific. I was thinking, they'd be more common in the french community given the origin of the board. Maybe if Chyros reviewed one of those, their price would double immediately and we'd have them working in less than two months because suddenly everybody wants one :mrgreen:

Do you by any chance know, what Switches they used for the Fn keys? They look like M9, but with a weird top housing...
to9 3.jpg
to9 3.jpg (156.84 KiB) Viewed 8367 times
Took this one before cleaning, sry for the image quality

User avatar
Myoth

08 Sep 2020, 19:14

TNT wrote:
08 Sep 2020, 18:10
Do you by any chance know, what Switches they used for the Fn keys? They look like M9, but with a weird top housing...
to9 3.jpg

Took this one before cleaning, sry for the image quality
They're Cherry M8 switches :) wiki/Cherry_M8

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TNT

08 Sep 2020, 19:20

Ohh right, just found that out too. I missed that site on the wiki. My bad. Thanks

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Yasu0

18 Sep 2020, 23:36


User avatar
TNT

29 Oct 2021, 01:11

Ok, I procrastinated for an eternity but finally came around to do this. I always assumed matrix and controller unit were on separate boards and therefore could be easily separated to make the board brainless, essentially. It turns out they are, so you just have to unplug the two ribbon cables on the top side of the PCB to make this thing usable. Not a real conversion, but entirely non-destructive and easily reversible. Here are the results (a.k.a. the mapped out matrix):

Matrix.jpg
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The picture looks like that because it's a scan of my notes. I just wrote the pinouts directly onto a picture of the board I printed out and had to fiddle around a bit to make the fineliner readable on the digitalized version.

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