| Well, I went and tried connecting an IBM PC keyboard
to the Amiga..and vice-versa.
They are plug compatible and apparently the voltage
and current levels are within limits......nothing
was damaged by this little exercise.
However, it didn't work. The Amiga just sat there
and nothing happens when the keyboard is used. In
the case of the PC, something like "bad key codes"
were gotten when using the Amiga's keyboard.
So.
Perhaps it is now a matter of trying to replace
the Amiga's keyboard routine with a custom
routine for the PC keyboard (or the LK250). Can
anyone provide any help/guidance as to how one
might do such a thing?
-thanks,
Jeff
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|
From USENET:
Article 8076 of comp.sys.amiga.tech
Path: shlump.nac.dec.com!decuac!haven!purdue!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!bloom-beacon!eru!luth!sunic!liuida!slaka!micke
From: [email protected] (Mikael Karlsson)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Subject: 2000 kbd to 500
Message-ID: <[email protected]>
Date: 25 Oct 89 09:32:32 GMT
Followup-To: comp.sys.amiga.tech
Lines: 84
In article <[email protected]> Dale Larson writes:
>I do not recommend replacing your A500 keyboard with an A2000 keyboard.
I don't share Dale's opinion. I certainly recommend replacing the keyboard.
This is an article that I wrote two months ago but never got
around to posting:
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Some time ago somebody asked if it was possible to connect an
A2000 keyboard to an A500. Well, it is, sort of...
Here's the story.
Ins and outs (from the TECHREF manual):
A2000
2 1 KCLK Keyboard clock
__ _____ 5 4 2 KDAT Keyboard data
| | \____ 3 NC
---> | | |____ 3 1 4 GND
|__|_____/ 5 +5
6 SHIELD
6
A500 - from left to right when facing the machine (bus side to floppy side)
1 KDAT Keyboard data
2 KCLK Keyboard clock
3 RESET Reset signal (Hard wired)
4 +5
5 KEY Beats me
6 GND
7 STATW Power LED
8 INUSE Floppy LED
Using this information I connected 2000 to 500; 1-2, 2-1, 4-6, 5-4.
When I switched on I got a stream of (not acrid smoke :-) quotes.
According to an earlier posting by George Robbins at CATS this meant
that KDAT and KCLK were swapped. I changed my connections to:
1-1, 2-2, 4-6, 5-4. This time, no smoke, no quotes. So, I try to type
something. Things look strange and after a couple of characters I
get no output. Since I use conman (and VT100s) I try a Ctrl-Q.
Ok, back in business. By now I can type almost anything, except "m",
"n" and cursor keys. After a while I realise that these keys have
some special meaning when used together with left and right amiga keys.
I press and release left amiga and right amiga and finally everything
works. So it seems like the A500 believes that the reset-keys are down.
By pressing and releasing them one at a time I tell the A500 that
they're up. The same thing happens if you try to reboot the A500 by
pressing ctrl-amiga-amiga. What happens is that the A500 registers
that the keys are pressed and then the keyboard resets itself leaving
the A500 believing that the reset-keys are still down. Question: How
does the A2000 detect a reset? Is there any HW involved? Is there a
difference in the ROMs between the A500 and the A2000?
Disclaimer:
I take no responsibility at all for any damage made to your Amiga.
Neither because of this fix or any other reason, such as earth quakes,
tornados etc.
Problems:
You can't do a 3-finger reset. It doesn't matter much to me since I
don't reboot often (twice a week maybe).
Questions:
Why did I have to swap KDAT and KCLK? Have I done anything wrong?
Would it be possible to connect both keyboards at the same time?
Would it be possible to connect a keyboard via the serial port?
Where can I find a specification of the data sent from the keyboard?
Comments? George? Dave?
Last recommendation:
I would feel much safer if you wait for somebody who knows what
he's talking to acknowledge this before you start mutilating
your Amiga 500 (and your friend's A2000 ;-).
----------------------------------------------------------------
Have fun.
Mikael Karlsson, Lovsattersvagen 10, S-585 98 LINKOPING, SWEDEN
[email protected], [email protected]
{mcvax,munnari,seismo}!enea!liuida!slaka!micke
[email protected]
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