Soarer's Converter vs QMK

[apastuszak]

I understand that these projects kind of serve different purposes, but when using QMK on a Hasu converter, they serve the same purpose.

I'm curious if there is anything that a Soarer's Converter can do that QMK on a Hasu dongle can't and vice versa.

[Muirium]

Soarer: Superb macros. Brilliant defaults. Never lock yourself out of the bootloader. Actually having an AT & PS/2 converter ready to flash and run for yourself.

QMK: Support for more keyboards. Nifty visual configurator. Somewhat actively maintained. Deeper layer logic. Mouse keys. Maybe VIA will work with it if you’re willing to hack.

[apastuszak]

Today I am learning about a limitation of QMK vs a Soarer's Converter. I had been using a Soarer's Converter on a PS/2 New Model M, and I think it's brilliant. I had macros defined to run when I pressed LSHIFT+F1 and a completely different macro for RSHIFT+F1.

On QMK (at least using VIA) you can make a macro, and you can have a key press execute it. But you can't have a modified key press execute it. So you can run a macro by pressing F1, but not by pressing LSHIFT+F1.

I wish there was a USB to USB Soarer's Converter. Since the firmware for the Soarer's Converter is closed source, and Soarer hasn't been seen in years, I don't see that ever happening.

I wonder. Can you plug a USB keyboard into a USB to PS/2 adapter and then plug that into a Soarer's converter?

[Muirium]

Someone reverse engineered Soarer’s converter some years ago, and some arrogant prick someone else leaked the source after promising not to publish it. So the source is out there if anybody wants to work on it; but sadly no one has, because drama.

I’d really dig a Soarer’s USB to USB converter, too. USB keyboards are a bit tricky compared to simpler protocols like AT, ADB, NeXT etc. You need a USB Host Shield to connect to the keyboard as a host, and that’s where things get murky and my understanding stops. I wanted to make my Realforce both programmable and Bluetooth, like my HHKBs, but I discovered it would be a lot of work.

Man, even “just” adding mouse keys to Soarer would be gold! I still love his approach to the keyboard remapping problem. So little setup, yet so much power!

[Polecat]

...

I wonder. Can you plug a USB keyboard into a USB to PS/2 adapter and then plug that into a Soarer's converter?

That would only be possible on the small subset of keyboards that internally support both PS/2 and USB. And even then I'm not sure the Soarers would sense it correctly. To test you need to first plug the keyboard into a passive PS/2-USB adapter and try it on a native PS/2 computer. If it works that way there's a chance it would work as a PS/2 on a Soarers.

[Muirium]

There are some active (i.e. literal) USB to PS/2 converters out there. Someone was asking about a year ago and ultimately found one, not for this use, but for connecting to an old PC as I recall. It’s not a topic which floats my boat, what with having zero PS/2 ports in the house besides for my converters!

Connecting a Filco Majestouch 2 to a Soarer via the passive PS/2 “converter” which comes in the box does certainly work, as Polecat says. But not all USB boards can pull that trick by any means.

[Polecat]

There are some active (i.e. literal) USB to PS/2 converters out there. Someone was asking about a year ago and ultimately found one, not for this use, but for connecting to an old PC as I recall.

...

I didn't mention that thread because it seemed like a dead end after the last few post(s).

viewtopic.php?p=497086#p497086

[Muirium]

Thanks for finding the thread. Reading it again, it sounds like a few of the active converters they identified can work, with power draw being the limit. USB devices can assume a higher power budget than AT/PS2 supplies: a fact egregiously misused by the horribly power hungry HHKB Pro 2 stock controller, among others. You learn which USB keyboards are power hogs when you try to use them on a tablet. It’s surprising just how many of them are poorly designed.

[apastuszak]

So, someone on Discord claims if you use QMK + VIAL (as opposed to VIA), it will let you map macros to a key+plus a modifier. VIAL has some nice features over VIA:

1. It's 100% open source
2. The json is stored and read FROM THE KEYBOARD, so no need to load the JSON file in the VIA app. You load the VIAL app and it detects your keyboard, pulls the JSON from flash memory and just works.
3. Supports up to 32 macros in the GUI, instead of the 15 that VIA supports.
4. Supposedly lets you assign a macro to a key with modifiers pressed down.

I would still prefer to use a USB-to-USB Soarer's converter, or an ADB-to-USB Soarer's Converter. But it sounds like VIAL might be a decent alternative.

[Muirium]

Well, it helps that it exists.

VIAL is better than VIA, from what I gather at a distance. (I’m straight QMK myself.) Its name is quite vile however.

[apastuszak]

They probably added the L at the end for 'libre' because it's open source.