Notices by Gammitin (Ben) 💾 (gammitin@mastodon.social), page 2

I have looked at the keyboard's microcontroller datasheet and identified clock input and the clock output pins, then the identified the correct clock output to the PC.

I think it may be 'PC/AT', I've removed all caps and they're all fine, also the microcontroller is working too. So I'm going to see what I can do for PC/AT to USB conversion. This is crucial for my Cyberdeck build, if I can reuse the keyboard, then it's off the cards for now.

D0 is Clock output to the computer.
D1 is Clock input from the resonator.
The keyboard is not switching on as it's not being told to buy the computer.
So it's confirmed that this is most likely to be an AT based keyboard (I don't think it's XT as it was a 386 laptop).

Time to do some logic analysis:

The microcontroller is fed by a ceramic 6Mhz resonator, which I have verified is doing its job correctly:

I've flashed Soarer's Converter software onto my ATmega32U4, confirmed it's working, connected up my vintage lunchbox PC keyboard and nothing, it still won't work. 😞🤔

To progress it looks like I'm going to have to make a USB converter with Manak1n's software, using at ATmega32U4. Hopefully this does the trick and the laptop wasn't sending some unknown commands, that I have no way of knowing:

A standard active PS/2 to USB is not going to cut it, it's most likely waiting for a command from the computer to switch on. Here's the AT hex codes sent from PC to keyboard:

Well it's receiving HID codes which is fantastic, but they're all wrong, so it looks like I'll have to remap it all, key by key, but hey it's all part of the fun! ⌨️👍

Mechanical Lunchbox PC keyboard to usb update:
I tested the original cable for continuity and it seemed fine, zoom forward to today when I realised that it does have an intermittent fault, so I decided to hook up straight to the board:
We have some AT / PS_2 activity! ☺️

£3, always nice to have a few different size CF's for testing!
32MB
256MB X2
1GB

I'm trying to identify this Pentium 3 board on The Retro Web, it's going to need a cleanup and recap, but has AGP, PCI and ISA! 👍

Pretty decent packing job, I think I'd have put a bit on the sides, but hey it's not mangled!

My Honeywell Bull AP-L (286 laptop from 1989) has arrived! 😎

This was the before photo, it came with 3x floppy disks:
💾 Zenith MS-DOS 3.3
💾 Zenith Utilities for MS-DOS 3.3
💾 Assembly language software package

FYI, I have inspected it and it's in good order, I gave it a full scrub down and clean with Isopropyl, it had what looked like nail varnish on - but it's come up a treat!
#BringLaptopHandlesBack

When I was looking at the sellers pictures, the logo stickers didn't look great, but they're immaculate, it's because they're silver, so their lighting mustn't have been great. Ohh this is exciting!

The power connector is positive on the outside, so I've had to make this reversed polarity connector.

While I wait for my Honeywell Bull laptop to arrive, I've decided I'm going to tackle repairing this:
1989 Twinhead Superlap 386SX Lunchbox PC.
It currently doesn't show any signs of life, I think I'll need to do some repairs on both the internal PSU and the motherboard.

First thing to do is to take all the pins out the keyboard connector and reattach them firmly, I'm going to need that keyboard!