Re: Possible to adapt a //e keyboard to PC?

[et472@FreeNet.Carleton.CA (Michael Black)]

Scott Alfter (salfter@salfter.dyndns.org) writes:
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> In article <3FD34F5D.67BCCCDA@swbell.net>,
> Rubywand  <rubywand@swbell.net> wrote:
>>Bill writes ...
>>> 
>>> Anyone know of any schematics to adapt a //e keyboard to a regular PC
>>> keyboard plug? Thanks!
>>
>>
>>     This could be first time I've heard that idea suggested. (Usually, users
>>are looking for ways to connect PC keyboards to Apple II's.)
> 
> Speaking of which, do you know of anything that would adapt a PS/2 keyboard
> to a II+?  Searching Google for parallel ASCII keyboards (what the II+ uses)
> didn't turn up much, and the keyboard in mine is flaky.
> 
A messy workaround would be to connect the printer port of some computer
to where the keyboard of the II connects, and then run a simple program
on the computer to output the needed byte as each key is pressed.

I was once given a Apple II clone that had a serial keyboard; there was
a simple serial to parallel board plugged in where the usual keyboard
would go.  Interestingly, the keyboard was an actual IBM PC type keyboard.
In that particular case, the code for the keyboard was in a ROM, and
someone had written code so the keyboard actually put out ASCII just
like a parallel keyboard (except of course it output in serial), so
nothing had to be done in the Apple.  There was even the original ROM
that could be put back to get the IBM PC type keyboard.

But considering how integration gets greater as time passes, you'd
have to look for old keyboards in order to find one that used a separate
ROM.  And by the time you figured out what was needed, and code it,
you probably wouldn't find another similar keyboard.

That seems a better choice, generating the right ASCII code in the first
place, than what has to be used otherwise, ie an adaptor between the
two that is an actual processor to do the conversion.  Create one, and
it works in all cases.

  Michael