Keyboard actuator

On Wed, 10 May 2000, John Foust wrote: Not quite ANY. It has a little bit of positional adjustment, but not much, and has provision for different key heights (for "Selectric", etc.). The good news is that key spacing is, for all practical purposes, standardized. Different key arrangements can be handled by swapping solenoids around, or in software. It only does the regular "alphanumeric" keys, and does not operate function keys, etc., even if they ARE where god intended. Although it could be used for transferring FROM a machine whose only external manifestation is a centronics port, for THAT I would agree that a parallel to serial converter is simpler. If there is any buffer, it's surely no more than a few characters. Instead, it is using the paralel port handshaking signals. There are "inline" parallel printer buffers that would work with it. Serial port is fine IFF 1) there is one. not on the Merganthaler from hell. 2) there is appropriate software. a VERY common lack. Cabling is an inconvenience, but not a major obstacle. usually. That's right. For routine transfer between relatively ordinary machines there are other ways. As you know, MY preferred method is reading and writing alien soft-sectored disk formats. But there are some machines for which NONE of the "reasonable" methods apply. (such as that Merganthaler typesetter) -- Fred Cisin cisin(a)xenosoft.com XenoSoft http://www.xenosoft.com 2210 Sixth St. (510) 644-9366 Berkeley, CA 94710-2219