| I know that it is possible to put an A2000 keyboard onto an A500 with a
bit of hardware hacking.
Both the A500 and the A2000 has the same type of electronics in the
keyboard with the exception of 1 transistor.
The problem is that the A2000 and the A500 translate the
Cntl,Amiga,Amiga sequence differently and this is controled by this
transister.
To put an A2000 keyboard on you need to insert a 2N3904 transistor at
position A1 onto the keyboard.This sends the Cntl,Amiga,Amiga signal to
pin 3 onto the Din plug. You must also make an adapter to the Din plug
so that you can plug it into the A500 motherboard.
The other problem is with the 'power' and 'drive' Leds. In an A2000
keyboard the Holes for the LEDS are empty. It in'st just a matter of
soldering in two leds either as there are no wires for these in the
coiled cord though if the reason that you want a detachable keyboard is
to put your A500 into another case then just put the power and drive
leds into this case as well.
For those of you who don't have it here is the pinout for the A2000 Din
connector.
2
Female 5-pin socket,
5 4 looking at rear(solder
pins).
3 1
6
Pin Signal Description
--- ------ -----------
1 KBCLK KEYBOARD CLOCK
2 KBDATA KEYBOARD DATA
3 NC NOT CONNECTED (Becomes reset after adding transistor Q1)
4 GND GROUND
5 +5V +5V POWER
6 SHIELD SHIELD
One final note - because the A500 uses a hard reset line whenever you
plug or unplug this addapted keyboard the computer will reset.
Hope this helps you.
Shaun.
P.S. I have not tried building this as yet but I intend to someday. If
anyone builds it an gets any other problems than the one's metioned
here I'd appreciate if they would tell me.
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