Anyone build thier own keyboard yet, perhaps written a driver? I'm thinking of rebuilding this one into use for a propeller and seeing what I can get it to do if nobody else has started development one already...
In the past I intended to write a keyboard encoder that would produce PS2 signals that way it could interface with the main prop and use the keyboard object, it was trickier than I imagined and I didn't bother in the end. Since then I wondered about putting an Rs232 interface on, that would seem simpler.
That's a great price, they should be good to use as they are for many projects or you could mount them into a project box by cutting a suitable hole and using only the top half of the origional casing. Or just use them as a 17key controller for your own buttons or just relabel the buttons as required. Great find.
The keypad has a PS/2 keyboard connector, but the 'Keyboard_Demo.spin' will not print out key codes when the keys are pressed. Will report back if I can figure out how to make them work.
Plugged a couple of the keypads (one at a time) to a DOS box. The bios reports 'No Keyboard Present'.
On the back of the keypad is another PS/2 Jack, if you run the keyboard.Demo.spin with a keyboard plugged into this jack and type characters on the 'big' keyboard then the typed characters will show up. My guess is these are designed to plug into a mouse port (jack on the back of the keypad has a mouse symbol embossed over it) and then you load a driver for the PC to talk to it.
Need to do some googling on the keypad, manufacturer is IBM PN:95F5446
Comments
Graham
FYI,
If you need a small PS/2 type keypad, you might check out this auction on ebay:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&ih=005&sspagename=STRK%3AMEWN%3AIT&viewitem=&item=150107716880&rd=1&rd=1
Just got 6, from this guy, to play with.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Mike
Graham
Not such a great find after all!
The keypad has a PS/2 keyboard connector, but the 'Keyboard_Demo.spin' will not print out key codes when the keys are pressed. Will report back if I can figure out how to make them work.
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Mike
Graham
Plugged a couple of the keypads (one at a time) to a DOS box. The bios reports 'No Keyboard Present'.
On the back of the keypad is another PS/2 Jack, if you run the keyboard.Demo.spin with a keyboard plugged into this jack and type characters on the 'big' keyboard then the typed characters will show up. My guess is these are designed to plug into a mouse port (jack on the back of the keypad has a mouse symbol embossed over it) and then you load a driver for the PC to talk to it.
Need to do some googling on the keypad, manufacturer is IBM PN:95F5446
▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔▔
Mike
I think you can check for keyboard present with the keyboard object, migh be worth a try.
Graham