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Conference hydra::amiga_v1

Title:AMIGA NOTES
Notice:Join us in the *NEW* conference - HYDRA::AMIGA_V2
Moderator:HYDRA::MOORE
Created:Sat Apr 26 1986
Last Modified:Wed Feb 05 1992
Last Successful Update:Fri Jun 06 1997
Number of topics:5378
Total number of notes:38326

2212.0. "small hardware project anyone?" by BAGELS::BRANNON (Dave Brannon) Mon Feb 06 1989 18:57

    
    any hardware hackers want to try to do the same thing for the amiga?
    The ST has a intelligent keyboard just like the Amiga, but it looks
    like it also scans the mouse and joystick ports.
    
    -Dave
                 <<< BOLT::MAY14$DUA1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ATARIST.NOTE;1 >>>
                       -< Atari's 68000 based systems. >-
================================================================================
Note 236.8             Another keyboard for the 1040 ????                 8 of 9
MUNICH::REINHOLD                                     36 lines   6-FEB-1989 07:33
                       -< DEC LK201 used on ATARI 1040 >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


Hi,

	for all of you, who wants to connect a DEC LK201 keyboard
	to the ATARI 1040 - it is possible !!!!!!!.

	I have build a hardware converter to translate the LK201
	to ATARI scan-code. The converter replaces the original
	keyboard. It also controles the mouse and joystick ports.

	At the moment, I design a printed-cuircuit-board for the
	converter. The prototype works with a german keyboard.

	If you have any interest, let me know.

                                                           JOY
                                   +----------+           +---+
                                   |          +-----------+   |
                       +-----------|  ATA-LK  |           +---+
        +--------------+---+       |   PCB    |           +---+
        |  Keyboard-   |   |       |          +-----------+   |
        |  connector --+-- |       +-----+----+           +---+
        |                  |             |                MOUSE
        |                  |             |
        |    ATARI 1040    |             |
        |       PCB        |             |
        |                  |  +----------+----------+
        |                  |  |                     |
        |                  |  |        LK201        |
        |                  |  |                     |
        +------------------+  +---------------------+
        

		Reinhold	TSSC Munich.

    
T.RTitleUserPersonal
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2212.1All it takes is time and a little $$STAR::BANKSIn Search of MediocrityTue Feb 07 1989 09:4631
    I played at interfacing an LK201 to my old Atari 800 a few years ago. 
    Still have the keyboard (bought legally through employee purchase,
    even) sitting in the basement next to all sorts of other unfinished
    projects.
    
    It really isn't too tough from a hardware standpoint if you want to
    burn off a serial port:  It has a four wire connection through which
    you feed some voltage (an amp of 5V, I think), a ground, and transmit
    and receive data.  Actually, the voltage above may be wrong.  Can't
    remember if it was 5V or 12V or whatever.  I suppose if it's 5V, it
    would probably require RS232 level conversion.  Like I said, it's been
    so long since I did it, I can't really remember the details.
    
    Anyway, I did have it hooked up to the serial port on my Atari once,
    and was successfully (and easily) reading characters from it.  It uses
    a 4800 baud asynchronous protocol, and when you get right down to it,
    if you like the defaults that the keyboard initializes with, there
    isn't a whole lot you have to send to it.  It takes care of autorepeat
    and keyclick itself, although you can send a whole raft of commands to
    it to reconfigure it.
    
    The way key presses come in doesn't seem to be much different than the
    way the Amiga's keyboard works, although I'd say it's a safe bet that
    it wouldn't simply be a matter of a different keymap file.
    
    I'd see two major pieces of work in interfacing one to the Amiga: 
    Faking the signals out so you can plug it into the normal keyboard's
    jack, and re-doing the appropriate parts of the keyboard driver
    software to make it all transparent.  If you were equally proficient at
    hardware and software, I'd expect the second task to be the more time
    consuming of the two.
2212.2maybe a lot of timeBAGELS::BRANNONDave BrannonWed Feb 08 1989 21:0853
    More details on the keyboard hacking needed.  What is the cpu in
    the Amiga keyboard?
    
                 <<< BOLT::MAY14$DUA1:[NOTES$LIBRARY]ATARIST.NOTE;1 >>>
                       -< Atari's 68000 based systems. >-
================================================================================
Note 236.11            Another keyboard for the 1040 ????               11 of 14
MUNICH::REINHOLD                                     41 lines   8-FEB-1989 02:56
                         -< LK201 - more information >-
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------



	Here are some detailed information.

	As I mentioned in .8, the converter is a peace of harware,
	which replaces the original ATARI keyboard.
	It can also be used with a switch to work with the original
	keyboard or with the LK201. 

	The converter is based on the same micro as the original
	keyboard - Hitachi 6301V or 6303R. I have extracted 
	the code from the ATARI keyboard and disassembled it.
	This was easy - but to understand the code was terrible.

	Then I have replaced all ATARI keyboard specific code with
	new code which handles the LK201.

	These is a simplified block diagram of the converter.


                     +-------+    +-------+    +-------+
                     |       |    |       |    |       |
   RX from ATARI-----|   6   |    | EPROM |    | UART  +------ RX from LK201
                     |   3   +----+       +----+       |
   TX to ATARI ------|   0   +-++-+  8K   +----+       +------ TX to LK201
                     |   3   | || |       |    |       |
                     |   R   | || |       |    |       |
                     |       | || |       |    |       |
                     +-------+ || +-------+    +-------+
                               ||
                           +---++---+
                           | Mouse/ |<---
                           |  JOY   |<---
                           +--------+



			Reinhold.