XT Zenith Z-150 converter?

[paecific.jr]

So is there a way to get this working with an Orihalcon's converter? I'm really not very knowledgeable on the whole converter thing xD . I can't seem to upload the file to my Orihalcon's though.

I don't think so, I wasn't able to load the hex file onto it.

[Chyros]

So is there a way to get this working with an Orihalcon's converter? I'm really not very knowledgeable on the whole converter thing xD . I can't seem to upload the file to my Orihalcon's though.

I don't think so, I wasn't able to load the hex file onto it.

Cheers; so what exactly do I have to do if I want to convert these? Assuming I have zero knowledge of actually making a converter xD .

[need]

So is there a way to get this working with an Orihalcon's converter? I'm really not very knowledgeable on the whole converter thing xD . I can't seem to upload the file to my Orihalcon's though.

I don't think so, I wasn't able to load the hex file onto it.

Cheers; so what exactly do I have to do if I want to convert these? Assuming I have zero knowledge of actually making a converter xD .

First you'll need a teensy 2.0, a 5 pin din connector and some wires...

[alienman82]

removed.

[orihalcon]

Soarers converter won't work with the "rounded edge" version of the keyboard PCB. One potential solution is to use the guts from a Leading edge DC-2014 that someone has harvested for switches from. You may have to use the leading edge caps as the layout has a triple wide numpad enter, otherwise layout is the same. You won't have the LEDs either though for lock keys which isn't supported by the XT protocol.

[alienman82]

removed.

[Phenix]

for clarification, as you were talking about using a Teensy:
Is using a pro micro definitely gonna fail?

I hope it wont, else I have to wait for the teensy to arrive..

[Slom]

I always wondered about this whole "rounded edge" thing, so today I opened up my boards ...

rounded

DSC02009.JPG (893.74 KiB) Viewed 11258 times

angled

DSC02011.JPG (908.15 KiB) Viewed 11258 times

[//gainsborough]

Is the top one a beige label and the bottom one a black label?

[Slom]

Is the top one a beige label and the bottom one a black label?

Yes, exactly.

[hasu]

I have reseached XT keyboard protocol and worked on XT-USB converter recently. I think I understood the protocol and implemented its converter correctly. Can anyone with Z-150 XT keyobard test my converter and give feedback? Test with any other XT keyboards are also appreciated.

The converter firmware is fully compatible with Soarer's wiring and pin configuration, you can use the firmware on Soarer's converter hardware without any modification.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94649.0




For reference,
Infos and resources of XT keyboard protocols:
https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/wik ... d-Protocol

[Muirium]

Cool. The only XT-protocol board I have is an IBM XT. I’m guessing you’ve had success with those!

Edit: Derp. I do actually have a Z-150. Just not over here. I won’t have my hands on it until winter.

[ZedTheMan]

I have reseached XT keyboard protocol and worked on XT-USB converter recently. I think I understood the protocol and implemented its converter correctly. Can anyone with Z-150 XT keyobard test my converter and give feedback? Test with any other XT keyboards are also appreciated.

The converter firmware is fully compatible with Soarer's wiring and pin configuration, you can use the firmware on Soarer's converter hardware without any modification.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94649.0




For reference,
Infos and resources of XT keyboard protocols:
https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/wik ... d-Protocol

Hasu, I have a black label Z150 coming in the mail this week, I will gladly try out your converter.

[ZedTheMan]

I have reseached XT keyboard protocol and worked on XT-USB converter recently. I think I understood the protocol and implemented its converter correctly. Can anyone with Z-150 XT keyobard test my converter and give feedback? Test with any other XT keyboards are also appreciated.

The converter firmware is fully compatible with Soarer's wiring and pin configuration, you can use the firmware on Soarer's converter hardware without any modification.

https://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=94649.0




For reference,
Infos and resources of XT keyboard protocols:
https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard/wik ... d-Protocol

Ah, damn, my Zenith seems to be electrically fucked one way or another. When I plug in the converter with your firmware (the converter is tested working with Soarer's firmware on other boards), it makes a temporary beep of the solenoid, and the Num Lock LED is stuck lighting up. The keyboard remains unresponsive beyond this. I will disassemble and try to figure out the problem, might make a thread about it.

[xxhellfirexx]

Ah, damn, my Zenith seems to be electrically fucked one way or another. When I plug in the converter with your firmware (the converter is tested working with Soarer's firmware on other boards), it makes a temporary beep of the solenoid, and the Num Lock LED is stuck lighting up. The keyboard remains unresponsive beyond this. I will disassemble and try to figure out the problem, might make a thread about it.

I am not sure if this is the same as my experience with Hasu's adapter and an AEK, but make sure your computer is totally off before you plug in the adapter or else all the lights on the keyboard will stay on and the keyboard will not work.

[hasu]

Ah, damn, my Zenith seems to be electrically fucked one way or another. When I plug in the converter with your firmware (the converter is tested working with Soarer's firmware on other boards), it makes a temporary beep of the solenoid, and the Num Lock LED is stuck lighting up. The keyboard remains unresponsive beyond this. I will disassemble and try to figure out the problem, might make a thread about it.

I am not sure if this is the same as my experience with Hasu's adapter and an AEK, but make sure your computer is totally off before you plug in the adapter or else all the lights on the keyboard will stay on and the keyboard will not work.

Your is TMK premade converter or your DIY?
I don't think it is normal for the converters, you don't have to do that in usual circumstance.

EIDT: I mean you have to look into the issue and report in proper place like forum or github. It would be helpful to improve the firmware.

[ZedTheMan]

AHA! I just realized that this is likely just a case of me having the stupid as I often tend to do, as I had the wrong pin soldered for the RESET line! I eagerly look forward to rectifying this when I have the time to return to my soldering station at home. It didn't make a difference for the soarer's since those keyboards didn't use the line, and though I checked the electrical connections to be solid on the reset line I soldered to pin D7 instead of B7.

Hasu, I will update you when I fix the converter.

[hasu]

AHA! I just realized that this is likely just a case of me having the stupid as I often tend to do, as I had the wrong pin soldered for the RESET line! I eagerly look forward to rectifying this when I have the time to return to my soldering station at home. It didn't make a difference for the soarer's since those keyboards didn't use the line, and though I checked the electrical connections to be solid on the reset line I soldered to pin D7 instead of B7.

Hasu, I will update you when I fix the converter.

I'm curious about whether RESET line is really needed or not.
Could you try the converter without connecting RESET line before soldering it if you have time?

[ZedTheMan]

AHA! I just realized that this is likely just a case of me having the stupid as I often tend to do, as I had the wrong pin soldered for the RESET line! I eagerly look forward to rectifying this when I have the time to return to my soldering station at home. It didn't make a difference for the soarer's since those keyboards didn't use the line, and though I checked the electrical connections to be solid on the reset line I soldered to pin D7 instead of B7.

Hasu, I will update you when I fix the converter.

I'm curious about whether RESET line is really needed or not.
Could you try the converter without connecting RESET line before soldering it if you have time?

I certainly can try that.

I will try to have the results for both with and without RESET line within 12 hours.

[ZedTheMan]

AHA! I just realized that this is likely just a case of me having the stupid as I often tend to do, as I had the wrong pin soldered for the RESET line! I eagerly look forward to rectifying this when I have the time to return to my soldering station at home. It didn't make a difference for the soarer's since those keyboards didn't use the line, and though I checked the electrical connections to be solid on the reset line I soldered to pin D7 instead of B7.

Hasu, I will update you when I fix the converter.

I'm curious about whether RESET line is really needed or not.
Could you try the converter without connecting RESET line before soldering it if you have time?

Hello. I have managed to test the keyboard both with and without the reset line soldered. Without, I have the same result as before, only the num lock LED lights up, the keyboard is nonresponsive, and lets out a single beep when plugged in.

With the RESET line soldered in correctly using the latest variation of your firmware, my black label Z150 works perfectly, and I am beyond happy to be typing this response with it.

One thing to note, the keyboard only works when the teensy is plugged into the keyboard FIRST, before plugging the teensy to the computer. Otherwise, there is a single beep of the solenoid, no LEDS are on, and it is unresponsive.

I hope this is useful to you. Thank you for another excellent keyboard conversion firmware, I have four wonderful keyboards now that I otherwise would not be able to use if not for you!

[hasu]

Great! Thank you for the testing.

Z-150 certainly needs 'hard reset' by pulse on RESET line and it doesn't work without it, hmm, interesting.
The hard reset happens only once when the converter starts up, so yes, you have to connect keyboard into the converter before pluging it to host.

[Muirium]

How about programming the converter to emit a hard reset pulse every few seconds when there’s no keyboard online? That ought to wake one up soon after connection. Is there a downside to this?

[ZedTheMan]

I'd be willing to test the above to see if it has any adverse effects.

[LessthanZero]

Won't bringing both the data and clock lines high for 20ms reset the board. Also the xt controller will flash all the leds after a hard reset, as a very basic functionality test. I've written a very basic xt converter that works on teensy2, its a very simple polling loop but it works on all the XT boards that I have. I'm probably going to do an interupt version just to learn how to use them better. I need to get some clones that send the double start bit, so did XT computers have trouble with these ZKB boards is it it solely a micro issue. Its odd to me that the protocol would allow so much variation and still be able to reliably work with any XT board. I wonder why our drivers have trouble and the original IBM hosts didn't?

[Engicoder]

I'm not sure there was a lot of mixing of XT keyboards between machines. I don't think anyone at that time would expect a Zenith XT keyboard to work with an IBM PC. It was sold with a Zenith PC and generally used with a Zenith PC which would have handled its clock, data and reset lines properly.

[Muirium]

Yup. Keyboard interoperability wasn’t high on PC cloners’ or users’ agenda. Why would you mix and match? Software was where it mattered. “IBM PC or 100% compatible” did not refer to the keyboard back then. We’re spoiled with open formats like USB and Bluetooth now, the 1980s were a very different place.

[hasu]

How about programming the converter to emit a hard reset pulse every few seconds when there’s no keyboard online? That ought to wake one up soon after connection. Is there a downside to this?

I don't think converter/host can detect plug/unplug of XT keyboard reliably, perhaps we can use reset line for this purpose using external pull down resistor. I like to know if someone have any idea.

Muirium, testing my coverter with IBM XT keyboard is still needed to me because anyone didn't report its success with the keyboard yet. I would be grateful if you can take time to test.

EDIT: I don't have any of real XT keyboards to test and I've tested my code with PS/2 keyboard plus AT2XT converter

[Muirium]

Loaded successfully onto my Soarer box and running fine. Typing this up on my XT just now. No issues. The only annoyance was, obviously, having to open up my converter box to access the Teensy's reset button.

How would you remap keys with this converter? Use your TMK web interface, like with the HHKB?

[hasu]

Muirium, Thanks for testing.

You have to edit keymap file and build from source codes but I'll add support for XT converter to online keymap editor some later.

[Hypersphere]

I have my Zenith Z-150 100-1886 Black Label keyboard "sort of" working at the moment using a temporary breadboard setup with a Teensy 2.0 and Soarer's converter 1.12 firmware and 1.10 tools for Windows.

I have two pullup 1k Ohm resistors between Data and +5V and between Clock and +5V.

I also have the reset line connected.

I was able load my custom keymap "sc" file. Everything seems to be working EXCEPT that I get intermittent repeated keystrokes, especially on Spacebar and Backspace, but also some letter keys. I also get some missed keystrokes And sometimes the Right Shift acts as if it were the Caps Lock.

The keyboard appears to be quite clean, so I don't think there are defective switches, but I cannot be sure of this. I've noticed that when these problems occur, they are accompanied by the LED on the Teensy being illuminated. When the keyboard is operating okay, the Teensy light is off.

Questions:

1. What does the Teensy LED signify?

2. I have tried loading Hasu's latest hex file, "xt_usb_unimap.hex". I did this both with a Teensy and with a Pro Micro. The Pro Micro had been previously flashed with the Orihalcon/Soarer converter. The hex file appeared to upload to the ATmega32u4 chip, but afterward, I could not get the keyboard to respond. I connected the converter to the keyboard first and then connected the USB cable to the computer. Should the keyboard respond with just this hex file uploaded?

3. Very naive question: What is the procedure for creating my own keyboard remapping using Hasu's TMK? I have done this previously using his onine editor and it has worked with no problems, but this was using one of the preset configurations on the TMK editor.

4. Can Hasu's hex file be used with either a Teensy 2.0 or with a Pro Micro? What are the correct procedures for each one?

5. @Hasu: Will you be adding the Z-150 to your online TMK editor? I have previously used this successfully with keyboard configurations that were available on the site.

Thanks!

EDIT: I used the PS/2-USB Converter rev. 1 on the TMK Editor site to generate a modified hex file. I substituted the actual key functions rather than the spatial location of the keys. I uploaded the new hex file into my Teensy 2.0 setup, and it worked! I now seem to have a correctly functioning Z-150 keyboard with my HHKB-ish layout.

However, when I tried this with a Pro Micro using QMK Toolbox, it didn't work. QMK Toolbox showed that the flash was successful, but I could not get any response from the keyboard.