Re: The Apple IIGS ADB Keyboard Lives!

[supertimer@aol.com (Supertimer)]

nobody@wavetech.net (Greg Buchner) wrote:

>Randy Shackelford <shack@onyx.southwind.net> wrote:
>
>> Charles A. Plater <ab3189@wayne.edu> wrote:
>> 
>> : I did get out of him
>> : that there was probably some kind of ROM in the Adjustable Keybd that
>> : prevented it from working w/ the GS.
>> 
>> I also saw somewhere that it doesn't work with 68K Macs without special
>> software.
>
>Well, maybe '020 Macs.  Used one on both a IIci and a Centris 650
>at one point...wasn't able to acquire it, someone bought it before
>I could.

It does not work with Macs that came before the Adjustable Keyboard
because the ADB controller/firmware does not recognize it.  The
Adjustable Keyboard does not identify itself as either a standard or
extended keyboard.

For earlier Macs, a software driver is needed.

With a software driver, it would work with the IIGS too.  However, a
IIGS driver for the Adjustable Keyboard was never written.

The story with the ROM is right, but the connotation is wrong.  The
ROM does not identify the IIGS and prevent the keyboard from
working.  Rather, it identifies the KEYBOARD as neither a standard
nor an extended keyboard, thus causing the IIGS to look for a driver
in the Drivers folder.  Of course such a driver was never written, so
we can't use it.

It is definitely possible to write a driver to support "non-built into
firmware" ADB because such drivers have been written for ADB
game controllers to work on the IIGS.