Re: Wanted: adaptor to use older Mac keyboards with IIgs

[dklugh@iwaynet.net (Daniel Klugh)]

Mitchell Spector <spec@vax2.concordia.ca> wrote:
> In article buggie@ben16.unm.edu (stephen e buggie) writes...

> >Could anyone design/build an ADAPTOR so that this early (pre-ADB) keyboard
> >could be used with the IIgs?  I saw this keyboard for $3 at a thrift shop
> >---- passed it bye.

>     My guess is it would take more than a simple RJ-11 pin adapter,
> you'd need some kind of signal convertor box as well.

>     It would be a pointless project anyway, considering the Macintosh
> Plus keyboard lacks many important keys that are *essential* towards
> operating an Apple IIgs. These missing keys include: Control, Escape,
> Reset and possibly Delete (did the Plus have a "Backspace" key?). If
> you look at pre-Plus keyboards, you don't even have cursor/arrow keys.

You used control-key combinations for cursor/direction control.

> >The IIGS "stealth" version has an IDE-26 male connector on the
> >motherboard, and it can use either an ADB keyboard or the IIe keyboard.
> >(The IDE-26 connector can be added to any IIgs motherboard.)

>     I think your referring to "IDC" type connectors (such as those on
> an old style Disk II Controller Card) IDE is a protocol used primarily
> for controlling PC hardrives and CD-ROMs. :)


un,ATA is used for IBM disk drives.Compact laser disk drives use ATAPI.

>     The connector on the IIgs motherboard is a 26-pin IDC for IIe style 
> keyboards and an 11-pin molex for IIe numeric keypads, but neither is
> fully compatible with ADB (for example, IIe numeric keypad keys will 
> not be recognized as different from the keys on the main keyboard's 
> homerow. Also, the cursor keys are equivalents of typing "^" control 
> characters rather than true cursor keys).

Well they have to be the same as the orignal keys or else programmes
wouldn't recognize them.Are you saying that gs cursor keys are incompatible
with ordinary Apple software?
(I never really used a gs)
The same goes for the numeric keypad.