deskthority

So I wasn't sure if I should post this in "marketplace" or "workshop". I guess I'll make the marketplace post at a later date when I'm in a better position to do so.

Basically I got down to the last few bits and pieces of my trip to the recycling center and I had nothing to move onto next. I decided to double down and invest everything I'd made from the recycling trip into buying about 40 of my favorite keyboard from that haul.

I dont want to say that I "fell in love" with the Televideo 965(?) keyboard, but I knew that I definitely liked it. I want to fix up and convert all these keyboards and spread the joy (by selling them).

I've already converted two of these boards in the past so I should be good on that front. My biggest concern right now is that it's going to take forever to sell all these keyboards.

Oh well, here are some pictures:









[imghttps://i.imgur.com/rs0v3Kk.jpg][/img]

When I first read the thread title, I thought this was an autobiography. Then when I saw the first picture, my first reaction was WTF?!?. Is your wife okay with this?

What a haul. As a space invaders enthusiast, I am happy to see these all saved. I will definitely buy a few from you, especially one of the nice link ones.

The Space Invaders have landed. Just send them to Engicoder I'll probably be interested in one.

All right!! I've finally hit a point in the hobby where I'm able to represent my keyboard ownership as a bar chart!

I took some time today to organize the boards by variety.

I'll post a little profile about each different one in a little bit.

Here's some details about each of these keyboards that I could glean by taking a few apart and using some detective skills. I don't know the model numbers for these keyboards so I gave them all nicknames based on their personalities.

Below the table is a blowout of each board with what I based my assumptions on.

If you think of any other interesting factors, let me know! This is really interesting to me!

	The Soldier	The Pawn	The Unknown	The Patriot	The Imposter
Manufacturer	nmb	nmb	nmb(?)	nmb(?)	wyse
Count	12 boards	15 boards	4 boards	2 boards	4 boards
Switch	linear white space invaders	linear white space invaders	linear white space invaders	linear white space invaders	linear cherry mx blacks
Variety	1 eye	2 small eyes	2 large eyes	2 small eyes	vintage
Connector	6p6c	4p4c	ps2	6p6c	4p4c
Power	voltage regulator	labeled 5v	labeled 5v	voltage regulator	presume 5v
Protocol (guess)	something over serial	something over serial	at/xt	something over serial	wyse

The Soldier
The Pawn
The Unknown
The Patriot
The Imposter
Thanks for reading!!!!

That’s a funky layout!

Outstanding! Good luck saving more great boards from scrap!

Man, the Soldier (Televideo 725) sure does require a lot of pins.

I'd like to take this information, do a little rewiring, and see if I can get this to work with a straight forward teensy++ 2.0 drop in place of the main IC. That would keep the internals nice and neat.

I'd like to think I'm getting pretty good at this and I'm really happy with how these are starting to turn out!

Holy crap that's a clean conversion, the Teensy fits in there perfectly.

I would like to see how. Straight before and afters are just a tease! (Especially when they’re different boards.)

Nice job snacks! Looks great. Definitely interested in buying a patriot and imposter if you decide to sell a few.
I have been working on a teensy like variant that matches the MCS-48 (8048,8049, etc) pinout better than the Teensy++ and has a few options for providing power to the board for other functions. I will make a post about it later today.

Nice! It is great how the Teensy fits the IC socket on these boards|

If you ever need a buyer and the price is right.. I'm right here, waiting!

Thank you guys for the nice messages!

I'm doing another one today and I'll make a detailed post with photos/videos of the whole process so that it's not just a "before and after" thread

@snufflecat, feel free to PM me and I can do one for you. I'll send you the keymap I've been using and you can let me know what to change to tailor it to you.

Dear lord, this has taken me all day to put together. Hope someone finds this interesting

Before:




Step 1: Map out PCB
Using a multimeter set to continuity check mode to check which pins correspond to the rows and columns. I mark the pins with a permanent marker.

Step 2: Remove keycaps
Space invaders can be a little bit tricky to remove the caps. I use a sideways prying motion to pop them off. Step 3: Remove unnecessary components
Removed all of the unnecessary passive components like resistors which can pull the signal down and give weird key presses. Step 4: Desolder ICs
Since we're replacing the controller, these aren't needed any longer Step 5: Dust the life out of it
This thing is awesome. So much better than canned air and it's paid for itself several times over Step 6: Clean the keycaps

First I soak them with dish soap then run them through an ultrasonic jewelry cleaner a few times. Step 7: Clean the case


I use a mr clean magic eraser which gets off all of the marks with minimal elbow grease
Step 8: Solder pins onto teensy
I use a breadboard to keep things in place while I solder the pins.

Step 9: Solder teensy to board
Thought about socketing it but my pins were a bit too fat to fit. Step 10: Replace keycaps
Luckily I have lots of boards to use as a reference. Step 11: Test matrix
Just making sure everything was traced out correctly. Step 12: Map matrix
I have a little arduino sketch I wrote which prints the row and column for each key. Makes this job a lot easier Step 13: Program TMK
I love TMK! Looks tricky but it's fairly straight forward once you've done it a couple times. Step 14: LED
Forgot about the LED so I had to do it after the fact. Step 15: Compile and flash
Fingers crossed.... IT COMPILES!!!!! After:

Thanks indeed! Just glancing here on my phone, I can see the work you put into it. Should be gold!

Love mine already

Great write up Snacks!! Very thorough. It's great to see space invaders get some love. That is a fantastic looking board!

Wow thanks again guys!

Someone on reddit was asking how they compare weight wise, which I thought was an interesting question. Here's how they each size up:

The Patriot - 43.43oz


The Unknown - 48.57oz


The Pawn - 49.03oz


The Imposter - 52.45oz


The Soldier - 53.8 oz


A couple people were also wondering what switch the linear space invaders are most comparable to. In my opinion, they're very similar to vintage mx blacks, but a tiny tiny bit lighter. The biggest difference I observe is in the sound. The space invaders make a deeper, "thockier" sound than the vintage cherries:

Outstanding! That soldering is really nice and smooth.

I'm in love with this post!!!

Please go on updating!!

Luca

No real update yet. I'll hopefully have time to knock out 8 of the pawns this weekend since they have the same matrix and the teensy++ 2.0 drop in works nicely on these.

I just wanted to share a small technique I've picked up. I've been doing a lot of desoldering for this project and it's always a challenge when the pins are bent. If you have bent pins, you can desolder the pin and bend it back to straight in one move by making a light prying motion. This works great on switches as well. I know there are a lot of alps boards where all/most of the pins are bent. Takes a couple seconds but it saves the trouble of fussing with the bent pins after the fact.

Also, I have about 40-50 of these little boxes with tiny USB mini cables. If anyone wants them (all of them or just a few), send me a PM. I cant think of any use for them and it seems wasteful to toss them.

This is the layout I've been using. The pink keys are my own modifications. I did my best to go with the original intent of the key when I could. And when I couldn't, I tried to use something that made sense ergonomically.


http://www.keyboard-layout-editor.com/# ... 24435212d0

Thanks for sharing all this with us, restoring/converting keyboards is a lot of work but also a lot of fun!

Luca

This weekend is going to be dedicated to cleaning my filthy apartment and cleaning up 8 of these Pawns that have already been converted. I was thinking that all of the soldering was out of the way but I realized a couple of these keyboards have broken switches that need to be replaced from a charitable donor board.

These are the recruits. They're a scrappy bunch for sure but I see potential. I have faith that after this bootcamp, they'll be ready to serve in the front lines with their brothers in arms.

Each recruit has already been equipped with a new microcontroller and have passed basic testing. Now all that's needed is to dust them off, scrub their cases, and wash their keycaps. By the way, these appear to be Televideo 935 and 965 keyboards. Both have the same matrix but the 965 has a lock light on the capslock key. The cases are all branded either "Televideo", "Hitachi", or are unbranded / missing badges. I've marked the cases and PCBs so that I can match them back up post-cleaning.





By the way, I'm looking to buy some extra Space Invader spacebars. These boards use huge spacebars (10u) but 9u spacebars will also fit (with little gaps on the side obviously). If anyone has some extra spacebars, I'd be forever grateful if you could reach out to me

One bad scary movie later and I've removed all the caps.

If you've ever wanted to watch someone pop the keycaps off of 8 boards in one sitting; boy, do I have the movie for you!

Building up a small collection of the different color SI switches!