Re: PS/2-Keyboard to Apple II converter

[David Wilson <mcs6502@gmail.com>]

On Apr 18, 2:07 am, Alex Freed <al...@mirrow.com> wrote:
> Not a good idea building a board to produce the "matrix" signals. Way
> too complicated.
>
> Just pull out the "keyboard ROM" (E12) chip and plug the PIC based
> circuit in. The output of the "keyboard ROM" is the keyboard data,
> largely the same as in 2/plus.

This would not quite work. The Keyboard Strobe and Any Key Down
signals do not got to the keyboard ROM socket.

> An alternative solution is to keep the "keyboard ROM" in place, but pull
> the keyboard encoder chip and reprogram the PIC to generate whatever
> codes are produced by the encoder chip. This would be a single (PIC)
> chip  solution.

This is more likely to work. My design idea was to pull both the
PRO-3600 and the 2716 encoder ROM, design a PCB with plugs to fit
those two sockets, relocate the pulled chips to sockets on the new PCB
which would also have a PIC or other microcontroller. This way both
keyboards would be operable at the same time. The PIC could also act
as a keyboard buffer for both the original and PS/2 keyboards.