Atari ST keyboard USB converter [TMK based]
Hi,
I'm a new member here, but a long time reader and I wanted to give back to the community.
A kind friend of mine gave me a Atari ST keyboard. I fell in love with it and wanted to use it on my PC.
I dug through Atari docs for keyboard protocol and made/coded a USB converter based on TMK and ProMicro.
https://github.com/adamkovesdi/tmk_keyb ... /atari_usb
This is a working alpha version, during initialization phase after plugging in the keyboard, one needs to wait a few seconds to get a reliable operation. In the future I may work on it for improving this behavior.
This is an action shot of the keyboard, rocking as an input device for a C64 emulator at a retro gaming party.
I'm a new member here, but a long time reader and I wanted to give back to the community.
A kind friend of mine gave me a Atari ST keyboard. I fell in love with it and wanted to use it on my PC.
I dug through Atari docs for keyboard protocol and made/coded a USB converter based on TMK and ProMicro.
https://github.com/adamkovesdi/tmk_keyb ... /atari_usb
This is a working alpha version, during initialization phase after plugging in the keyboard, one needs to wait a few seconds to get a reliable operation. In the future I may work on it for improving this behavior.
This is an action shot of the keyboard, rocking as an input device for a C64 emulator at a retro gaming party.
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- Location: Stockholm, Sweden
- DT Pro Member: 0011
Cool! That's the keyboard with Cherry switches, right?
The keyboard should have two joystick ports at the back. Too bad that TMK doesn't have gamepad/joystick support, but that should be possible to add.
The keyboard should have two joystick ports at the back. Too bad that TMK doesn't have gamepad/joystick support, but that should be possible to add.
- matt3o
- -[°_°]-
- Location: Italy
- Main keyboard: WhiteFox
- Main mouse: Anywhere MX
- Favorite switch: Anything, really
- DT Pro Member: 0030
- Contact:
arduino stack supports mouse/joystick and all. if you don't mind losing TMK flexibility you could use that. I've build a keyboard out of it, it's not as fun as TMK but it totally works
Perhaps that's a job for someone interested in the joysticks.
Repurposing the connection code, one can work out the bits for the joys. They report events in a very similar way like the keypresses.
I love TMK and lack the resources to rewrite the keyboard code from scratch unfortunately.
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- Location: Stockholm, Sweden
- DT Pro Member: 0011
A silly thing with TMK is that it has multiple USB "back-ends", and if one would add USB joystick support, the proper way would be to do it multiple times: once for each back-end.
I have written my own joystick adaptor with my own USB backend (patterned after PJRC's), so maybe I could at least add it to the LUFA backend that you are using.
I have written my own joystick adaptor with my own USB backend (patterned after PJRC's), so maybe I could at least add it to the LUFA backend that you are using.
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- Location: Canada
- Main keyboard: GK-008
- Main mouse: Logitech M570
- Favorite switch: Cherry mx
I posted in the workshop forum.. but I am working on the same keyboard.. but for use with my ST>. I need to figure out how to come up with the stabilizer wire for the spacebar.. much wider than a standard bar. Any ideas?
James
James
Thanks for the feedback Bikerbob. No plans on selling it as it was a present from a good friend.
But now I feel smart about making the converter plug into the original socket even though I had to source the proper RJ12 connector for it. This way I could preserve the keyboard in it's very original form.
Hi,
thank you for your converter! It's a very cool idea!
I have also a Mega ST Keyboard and I want to use it with a Atari ST Emulator.
I was able to compile your converter and running it on a Arduino Micro (based on a ATmega32U4 microcontroller).
Unfortunately the converter is not running stable. Somtimes I get no characters. It seems that a external power supply helps but don't solve the problem.
How can I debug what happens if keystrokes don't generate characters?
Best Regards
thank you for your converter! It's a very cool idea!
I have also a Mega ST Keyboard and I want to use it with a Atari ST Emulator.
I was able to compile your converter and running it on a Arduino Micro (based on a ATmega32U4 microcontroller).
Unfortunately the converter is not running stable. Somtimes I get no characters. It seems that a external power supply helps but don't solve the problem.
How can I debug what happens if keystrokes don't generate characters?
Best Regards