IBM Point Of Sale 4683 Keyboard 25F6329

[Tbernstein2368]

New member question. Re the above captioned keyboards what’s involved to get them to work on a PC with either a PS/2 port or USB? For the former I’m not sure if it’s just a physical adapter or if a converter is needed. Obviously the USB would require a converter assuming they can be converted. I’ve searched in the tipis and wasn’t about to find anything. Thanks

[Weezer]

Do you have a pic of the keyboard and the plug it uses?

[Tbernstein2368]

Does this help

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Photo 2

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Photo 1

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[Weezer]

Looks like it uses an SDL cable. I'd venture to guess it works with PS/2 but it's hard for me to say since I don't have any experience with this model and IBM made so many different POS keyboards over the years. If I were in your position I might purchase a SDL to PS/2 cable from Unicomp and see what happens when it's plugged into a PS/2 port. You might even be able to get away with one of those SDL to USB soarer's converters that Orihalcon sells but that's less likely to work.

[hellothere]

"Tipis"? If you're referring to the Wiki, I'm officially asking if we can change the name of the Wiki to Tipi.

I hopped onto ebay and saw the ad for this 'board or one extremely similar.

* Because it had those membrane cables flopping out the back, you might not be able to get the keyboard to work without modification. I've worked with some POS equipment and it's pretty funky.
* A couple of ebay ads, like this one, said that the keyboards are new. Not "new, old stock." They're also made in China.

Tbernstein2368, I'm going to try to let you down gently: I think you may be hoping that this is one of the IBM buckling spring keyboards and you just got a great deal. I'm sorry to say that this is probably a rubber dome keyboard. If it was a "new" buckling spring 'board, it'd be made in the US by Unicomp. Weezer may be completely right about getting an SDL cable or converter and that'll make the keyboard work, but you'll be spending another $30 to $40 on a rubber dome keyboard.

[Weezer]

Thats true. I was thinking under the assumption that you knew it would be rubber dome. Hellothere brings up some great points. You may not want to invest that kind of money on it depending on how you like the key feel.

[Tbernstein2368]

Thanks for all the input. I wasn’t thinking it was a buckling spring keyboard as I’ve got a few model M’s already and use as daily drivers. I was just curious in general about if these (probably Chinese made) keyboards could be used on a traditional PC.

[Weezer]

I'd say you'd have a good chance of at least the normal alphanumeric block working because IBM was so big on standardization, but it's a crap-shoot since they made so many specialized systems on the POS line over the course of 30+ years and POS systems don't necessarily need to be widely cross compatible in the same way that consumer PCs do. I have one of their circa 2012 register computers cause it was being thrown out where I used to work and it has all sorts of proprietary BS on it, including the power button having its own discrete circuit board and the hard drive being mounted with a special PCIE slot. It does have PS/2 ports though and I think the original keyboards used PS/2. If you're curious enough to get that keyboard and find out, I'd be interested in what your findings are

[Tbernstein2368]

Thank you again for the time and effort to answer my post. If I get I’ll let you know what I discover.

[hellothere]

Good luck!