26 Jul
2006
26 Jul
'06
4:33 p.m.
Looking for thoughts on which machines used
parallel ASCII keyboards...
Many (perhaps most) older equipment with an integrated keyboard (ie: not
on a cable) used parallel keyboards - also any with an external keyboard on
a ribbon cable are likely parallel.
> I've got a couple of working machines here that used such a keyboard based
> around the AY-3-4592 chip, but only one keyboard to go between them.
As a real kludge to get things working, how about an old PC laptop, and
link the parallel port of said machine to the keyboard input on your
classic system. The necessary software shouldn't be hard to write.
> Knowing which systems to look out for would be a
start. Nascom, maybe? I think
> RML 380Z's are probably parallel ASCII too, but their keyboards are already
> rare as hen's teeth so I wouldn't be happy with that...
Ditto PERQ 1/1a
It would be dead simple to make an adapter to convert a standard PC serial keyboard
into an ASCII/strobe parallel interface - you get the added benefits of having lots of
extra keys, and the ability to assign whatever codes you like to them.
I was going to suggest something like that. In fact one day I must get
round to designing such and interface.
-tony