deskthority

Hello. I'm new here and I'm happy to have found this wonderful community. I used to have IBM keyboards when I was kid, and I remember them to this day, yet i currently own none (but am working on it ) .

This being said, while I'm searching for an IBM Model M keyboard, I'm also looking for a good converter for it.
The best one I could find in my area is this: ATEN UC100KMA . The product page is
https://www.aten.com/global/en/products ... /uc100kma/

Will this work for For M models (or others) ?

Either that or, I also this one, a Logilink AU0004A
https://www.2direct.de/computer/adapter ... grau-0-3-m

And I'm confused about the conversion from AT to PS/2. In this case, do I need a converter, or adapter? If adapter, i suppose I could use just the cheapest one, correct? At some point in the future I'd love get my hands on a 1390120/1390131 but these use AT.

Thank you.

This simple question is in fact very complicated, thanks to IBM's bad choices in the 1980s about protocols and connectors. I'd point you to one of DT's many, many threads about this but the server's too broken today to conduct a search.

My practical advice is buy them both, try them, and return what doesn't work. What you need is an _active_ converter. Simple enough, but everyone out there wants to sell these things without understanding even the basics of what they are. Trial and error, error, error!

So there nothing guaranteed to work? What about that blue-cube?

I have never had a problem with the cheap "Y" cables for Model Ms and modern PC motherboards, but they are not always a sure thing.

The older "AT" connectors can be downsized to the PS/2 (mini-DIN6) with a simple connector and then taken to USB through the above active device.

Note that Model F keyboards are not so simple and need a more sophisticated converter - most commonly the "Soarer's Converter" or equivalent.