Re: Mac keyboard on a PC

["Bill Garber" <willy46pa@comcast.net>]

Mainly correct, Bryan's answer is not totally correct.
If you open up one of each, AT and ADB, you will see
that they both use +5v to power them, however the
controller is what is different. The controller IC's are very
different devices. I even tried to install the Intel chip into
the ADB keyboard's interface board and although I was
able to type on it, none of the keys corresponded to the
characters I was getting. I believe it is very possible to
get a PC keyboard to work on a mac and vice-versa, but
it would be much easier and probably cheaper in the long
run just to buy a keyboard meant for the computer you
are running. Good Luck if you do persue your quest to
run a Mac device on a PC.

Bill @ GarberStreet Enterprises
http://garberstreet.netfirms.com


"Bryan Villados" <news002@macgeek.org> wrote in message
news:oz7W9.36996$X7.14292485@twister.socal.rr.com...
> I think the problem with connecting an ADB based keyboard to a PC is that
> even though logically it's a keyboard, the actual connectivity are totally
> different animals. The Apple Desktop Bus keyboards are basically
networking
> devices, similar to that of LocalTalk/EtherTalk devices, in that each ADB
> device is really a node, assigned with a network ID, on a bus network. ADB
> comes complete with its own proprietary protocol for the device to
> communicate on the bus. It's designed like this so that you can
daisy-chain
> multiple ADB devices on the same bus.
>
> A PC keyboard, on the otherhand, is more like a serial type of device,
which
> is why it really wasn't designed to have more than one device connected to
> the keyboard port (XT, AT or PS/2).
>
> With that, it would take a huge effort to develop a bridging device that
> converts ADB signals to something like a PS/2 connection. What would be a
> really cool hack is to take an ADB keyboard and re-solder all the switches
> to a PS/2 keyboard interface. If you open up a typical PC keyboard, it has
> its own processor (don't know what chip it uses now -- back in the early
> days of AT keyboards they used to use an Intel 8085, which is a
stack-driven
> processor), so in reality these keyboards are computers themselves. So it
> would be interesting if someone did this sort of hack. I came across a web
> page awhile back where someone converted an Apple IIc keyboard to a USB
> keyboard so they could fit an iMac logic board into a IIc case, so I know
> that a total keyboard re-solder job is possible.
>
> http://www.usennet.ne.jp/~ikawada/iMacIIc/iMacIIc-1.html
>
> I've also seen ADB->USB adapters, which lets you use ADB devices on more
> modern Mac systems like an iMac. So maybe this adapter could give you some
> clues.
>
> --- Bryan
>
>
> <email@380c1.ath.cx> wrote in message
> news:d96W9.89894$kY3.4663356@twister.southeast.rr.com...
> > Hi, i want to use a Macintosh Keyboard II on my PC system.  Is there a
way
> to do this? I'm looking
> > into using the serial port or parallel port to achieve this, but it \
> looks pretty complicated.
> > Well, thanx in advance
> > w00t
> >
> >
>
>