USB to PS/2 + Soarer's Converter?

[ghostdawg187]

Meanwhile I have purchased 2 Soarer's converters, one for the Model F XT and the other one for the Model M (PS/2 to USB). I got used to my remapped layout on the XT and would like to have it on all my "modern" keyboards with USB cable.

Is it possible to use a USB to PS/2-adapter together with a Soarer's PS/2 to USB Converter? I just do not want to spend more money for another converter and want to use my already existing ones.

[Anakey]

USB to USB converters are a lot more expensive then ps/2 to USB and the two converters are not interchangable

[ghostdawg187]

USB to USB converters are a lot more expensive then ps/2 to USB and the two converters are not interchangable

ok, but assume I have a modern keyboard with usb cable and I want to use it with a ps/2 to usb Soarer's converter. In order to do this, I think I would need a usb to ps/2 adapter, which I can plug into the ps/2 to usb Soarer's converter. Now the question is, if the Soarer's converter is able to read those signals, which have been sent from the keyboard by usb through usb to ps/2 adapter.

[JBert]

If you have one of those keyboards which works with a passive USB-to-PS/2 adapter then you could do it. The keyboard will fail to detect a USB host and switch to PS/2, after which it will communicate with Soarer's converter.

I have a Cherry G80 which I bought in 2010 which does this perfectly well. So well that I have in fact built a Teensy with Soarer's converter into the keyboard, the cable exiting the keyboard is just a long USB mini cable plugged into the Teensy.

However, do check your own keyboard before you go out and buy adapters. If it came with one of those little adapters then it's likely a passive one and you keyboard's firmware should support it. The majority of modern keyboards do not come with one though, so either check the Internet or test with a cheap adapter.


If you have a modern USB-only keyboard then Soarer's converter cannot be used so easily. Either you would need a converter USB-to-PS/2 before plugging it into Soarer's PS/2-to-USB converter, but that's going to be costly and ugly (they're both converters which need power, and the USB-to-PS/2 is likely to come in a plastic enclosure).

The other alternative is to build yourself a USB-to-USB converter using TMK, but then it will obviously not support Soarer's mappings. It takes some hardware and programming skills to pull it off though, as your keyboard might not be supported by TMK yet.

[ghostdawg187]

^^ Ok, this certainly helps a lot and I understand the issue. Thank you very much for answering my question

[ghostdawg187]

I am in possession of a tinkerBOY PS/2 Keyboard To USB with Soarer’s Converter. Moreover, I have found an good offer for a Cherry G80-1800 keyboard with PS/2 connection. Are there any known issues for using the converter with this keyboard?

[Muirium]

No idea. Probably not. You can report back for us!

I’ve had excellent reliability with Soarer’s on all sorts of PS/2 and AT keyboards. I bet you’ll be fine.

[orihalcon]

Hasu makes a USB to USB converter which runs TMK and I believe that it is actually two separate arduinos put together, so it can't run on a single arduino unfortunately. The USB to USB converters I have really only work if the board can support PS/2 output through a USB plug, so really it's just a PS/2 converter still but basically eliminates the need to use passive USB to PS/2 adapter as others have pointed out. Only a few types of keyboards support PS/2 protocol over USB though. I believe the reason that this is preserved on those keyboards is that you can get higher key rollover over PS/2, so PS/2 was considered better for gaming, though now most high end keyboards can do NKRO over USB straight from the manufacturer.

[edlee]

I just wrote about this topic in another thread. There are two USB to to PS/2 adapters that can be bought on eBay:

Black Box kvusb-ps2

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