KevinSeghetti:Stories: Difference between revisions
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<div id<code>"''mcePaste">Attaching my own keyboard to it was quite a learning experience.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">The keyboard connected to the motherboard via a ~25 conductor ribbon cable.</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">So I unplugged that and took a piece of wire and poked it into the holes in various combinations until I had mapped what pins to short to enter each key.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">I picked up an old keyboard at a computer swap for a buck, opened it up, cut various traces and soldered wires onto them in the matrix needed.</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">When I connected it and pressed keys, nothing happened. It didn't work at all. Puzzled, I took it back apart, and tried typing by directly shorting the pads with a jumper. That worked fine. It just didn't work when I tried to use the bottom of the key. Evetually I put a ohmmeter on the bottom of the keys and discovered they weren't conductive.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">I had no idea what that meant, but solved the problem by glueing aluminum foil to the bottom of each key.</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">Worked great. I did have to disassemble and clean it every few months, though.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">Years later I learned what a capacative scan keyboard was (an OH! so that's why that keyboard was like that moment).</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">There was one other thing I did on that keyboard: it had dedicated cursor keys, which the Atari 400 didn't. You had to hold down the ctrl key to turn other keys into the cursor keys.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">I wanted to use the dedicated keys, so I cut the pads on the board in half, wired one side to the ctrl key, and the other side to the keys used for cursoring. Then I built up solder towers on the ctrl side so that it engaged first, before the cursor key.</div> <div id="_mcePaste">Worked fairly well, although it was usually the first to start failing when it became time to clean it.</div> | <div id<code>"''mcePaste">Attaching my own keyboard to it was quite a learning experience.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">The keyboard connected to the motherboard via a ~25 conductor ribbon cable.</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">So I unplugged that and took a piece of wire and poked it into the holes in various combinations until I had mapped what pins to short to enter each key.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">I picked up an old keyboard at a computer swap for a buck, opened it up, cut various traces and soldered wires onto them in the matrix needed.</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">When I connected it and pressed keys, nothing happened. It didn't work at all. Puzzled, I took it back apart, and tried typing by directly shorting the pads with a jumper. That worked fine. It just didn't work when I tried to use the bottom of the key. Evetually I put a ohmmeter on the bottom of the keys and discovered they weren't conductive.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">I had no idea what that meant, but solved the problem by glueing aluminum foil to the bottom of each key.</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">Worked great. I did have to disassemble and clean it every few months, though.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">Years later I learned what a capacative scan keyboard was (an OH! so that's why that keyboard was like that moment).</div> <div id<code>"''mcePaste">There was one other thing I did on that keyboard: it had dedicated cursor keys, which the Atari 400 didn't. You had to hold down the ctrl key to turn other keys into the cursor keys.</div> <div id</code>"''mcePaste">I wanted to use the dedicated keys, so I cut the pads on the board in half, wired one side to the ctrl key, and the other side to the keys used for cursoring. Then I built up solder towers on the ctrl side so that it engaged first, before the cursor key.</div> <div id="_mcePaste">Worked fairly well, although it was usually the first to start failing when it became time to clean it.</div> | ||
-- Main: | -- Main:KevinSeghetti - 23 Nov 2011 | ||
Latest revision as of 12:29, 28 November 2025
Recently I have been considering writing some of the stories of my life down, in the hopes that someone may find them interesting.
This page is where I am going to dump stories as I think of them, or as I tell them to others. Needs lots of cleanup
Atari 400
I finally got my own computer, an Atari 400, with a basic cartridge and a cassette drive!
Shelled walnuts all summer to save enough $$ to buy a floppy drive for it. (a Rana 1000, which could do double density, a whopping 360K on a double sided floppy).
Also added an memory expansion, from 16KB to 48KB.
Later I hand soldered a surplus keyboard I found to work with it instead of the membrane keyboard, added a swtich to turn off keyboard click, and added an audio output jack (since the 400 only had RF out).
<div id"mcePaste">Attaching my own keyboard to it was quite a learning experience. <div id"mcePaste">The keyboard connected to the motherboard via a ~25 conductor ribbon cable. <div id"mcePaste">So I unplugged that and took a piece of wire and poked it into the holes in various combinations until I had mapped what pins to short to enter each key. <div id"mcePaste">I picked up an old keyboard at a computer swap for a buck, opened it up, cut various traces and soldered wires onto them in the matrix needed. <div id"mcePaste">When I connected it and pressed keys, nothing happened. It didn't work at all. Puzzled, I took it back apart, and tried typing by directly shorting the pads with a jumper. That worked fine. It just didn't work when I tried to use the bottom of the key. Evetually I put a ohmmeter on the bottom of the keys and discovered they weren't conductive. <div id"mcePaste">I had no idea what that meant, but solved the problem by glueing aluminum foil to the bottom of each key. <div id"mcePaste">Worked great. I did have to disassemble and clean it every few months, though. <div id"mcePaste">Years later I learned what a capacative scan keyboard was (an OH! so that's why that keyboard was like that moment). <div id"mcePaste">There was one other thing I did on that keyboard: it had dedicated cursor keys, which the Atari 400 didn't. You had to hold down the ctrl key to turn other keys into the cursor keys. <div id"mcePaste">I wanted to use the dedicated keys, so I cut the pads on the board in half, wired one side to the ctrl key, and the other side to the keys used for cursoring. Then I built up solder towers on the ctrl side so that it engaged first, before the cursor key.
-- Main:KevinSeghetti - 23 Nov 2011
