deskthority

OK, I finished my replacement controller for the battleship. Hooray! The Blackpill-based setup works. There are some hurdles, but they can be overcome. If using GPIO A10 for the matrix, it needs an additional external pull-up resistor. This has already been planned into the schematics for the replac...

Unicomp’s offerings are somewhat well known in enthusiast circles, but larger keyboards are currently not en vogue and there is much less information out there regarding the 122 key terminal keyboards by Unicomp. So here are some thoughts from a Linux user who does not mind using screwdrivers and ha...

I got some very helpful tips on the QMK discord (thanks user "sigprof", you are my hero) and finally had time to try it out. I’ll write it down here for posterity, discord kinda sucks for documenting things. One can indeed use "Blackpill" boards (STM32 F401 or STM23 411), which have enough GPIOs. Wh...

Too late indeed to avoid the rabbit hole. It's too much fun. Would love to play around with QMK, but had no reason yet. But it's a really good point, DMA, thanks! I do not care about the multiple conversion, that works for me. But not having to mess around with the original controller is an attracti...

I have a bunch of those lying around and I found them more easily available here in Germany. It’s true that the USB micro B to C converter takes up even more space – maybe I didn't look hard enough, but USB C Pro Micros sometimes get sold for ~20€ in some shops I found, which makes it not worth it a...

So, I finally had some time again. After looking at the issue in more detail, I came to the conclusion that I needed to desolder the SDL plug. I am somewhat sad about it, but the old detachable PS/2 cables I have are quite stiff and unwieldy for my desk. I also feel that their plastic is somewhat br...

Those definitely seem to be Alps SKCM White. All the markings described in the wiki fit. As a side effect I learned something about Alps switches today. Sadly, this is the best level of detail my crappy phone camera can provide: reply-1-1.jpg No blues, but I’ll keep this keyboard intact for sure. Mi...

I found a Unikey KB-6153 when looking through old stuff. German layout, switches are clicky and soldered to a PCB, connector is DIN (here I replaced the cable with a Soarer converter to test the board, it’s fully functional): 1.jpg I mainly wanted to know if this is anything interesting/valuable, I ...

Thanks for the hints and the warm welcome. The German ISO layout including big, fat Enter keys is unfortunately(?) imprinted too deeply into my muscle memory. Typing on anything else drives me crazy now :D I checked that the stabilizer is correct and correctly installed, I think otherwise the key wo...

For my first post on the forum, I thought I’d share how I got back into buckling spring keyboards. I bought a “Battlecruiser” (P/N 1397003 from 1999) on eBay in 2007, being fascinated by the number of keys and wanting to experience the typing feel (I forgot where I read about it, but at that time it...