deskthority

41. HP TFT5600 RMM early laptop sort of thing. Gives “Check Cable” message when plugged in. £10


I believe that is an integrated keyboard, mouse, and monitor designed to go in a rack of servers. Normally there would be a slider assembly and rails so you could open the front of the rack, slide it ...

Vial is yet another separate codebase, requiring work to merge even if you have the QMK part done.
If we had an open sourced Soarer's, the community would have more choices, which is a good thing. Instead we have another messy layer on the QMK/VIA/VIAL shit sandwich.

So, did those attorney and IP compliance officer at esr's hyperscale Internet company find Soarer's or not ?

No, they ended up using QMK for their controller, probably due to the idiot behavior on this shitshow thread.
https://gitlab.com/esr/m-star/-/blob/main/web/mini-installation.adoc
So now ...

I had read that you can pull one of these chips and send it to a company in China that will break the chip apart and go in with some kind of tools to read the ROM data from it... it destroys the chip, but then you can in theory burn a new one, modify the code, etc. I don't think I'm willing to go ...

I was only familiar with the later Tan/Black Matias boards with the Matias Alps clone switches. I got curious of the history when I saw the grey Alps and noticed the controller identified itself as strongman when the keyboard was plugged in.

Like many, whenever I visit a thrift store I check the inevitable pile of sticky old rubber dome garbage keyboards. I happened to visit a local Goodwill recently and made the obligatory check. I came across a filthy, late 90's Mac looking board. It felt heavier than a typical Apple board of the time ...

I don't know why the version number flashes and disappears. That could be from the Soarers Converter I'm running. I can try it on a blue cube or Radio Shack dongle next time I have it out. It does the same thing on my other Northgates also, so it isn't just the 101I.


Not the converter. Tried it ...

I got an extension socket (I used a Teensy) and ran it to the cable support bracket.
https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20977
Unicomp still has spare brackets available here https://www.pckeyboard.com/page/product/RETAINER
Can't help you with the enter, mine's not the battleship and has a ...

Interesting. The connector is probably a standard 9 pin serial. The serial connector would have been unusual if it were a mouse made for a PC, maybe it was for a larger system. Three buttons would have been more common on a Unix workstation. One rarely sees optical mice of that vintage. I never came ...

Coming back on the CB radio...
Update. Between work, life, and other projects, my motivation has been low. I had the mini on a secondary computer, so my solution to having a keyboard without functioning f11-12 was to pull out my Soarer-converted terminal M and stick the mini on the shelf. I checked ...

thefarside wrote: 05 Jan 2023, 22:07 The Mstar from level 1 tech looks nice but costs almost as much as the Mini M

It's cheaper if you do the soldering yourself. It would be nice if their code was based on a current version of QMK though.

Counting the stars and the telephone poles
Small update. I still haven't managed to get the crusty m_star code to compile on a current version of QMK, but my picking of SunshineRag_DT's brain (thank you) has yielded a critical piece of information: The shipping firmware on the M-Star contains ...

What hoops did you have to jump through to get the m-star to compile on current QMK? I'd eventually like to get Vial enabled QMK on my M-Star powered Mini-M but I can't even get a basic QMK compile to work. I got QMK going and did a test compile on the omnikeyish, which worked fine. Then I pulled ...

You’re fucked then for nice simple Soarer support. What were they thinking?

The project was designed to be an open source replacement controller. Besides the mini-m, they're doing kits for classic Model-M keyboards. The frustrating thing is that the files aren't in the main QMK repo, so you have ...

For the ticker-tape kings, and the juveniles
Ok, digging into the m-star QMK fork, the info.json has the matrix:
"matrix_pins": {
"rows": [ "B6", "B5", "B4", "A15", "B3", "A0", "A2", "A1", "C15", "C14", "C13", "A13" ],
"cols": [ "B12", "B13", "B14", "B15", "A8", "A9", "A10", "B11", "B10", "B1 ...

I picked up one of the early Unicomp Mini-M's shortly after they were released.
It's a great keyboard, but unfortunately the controller has been problematic.
The keyboard sometimes is unresponsive when the computer boots, and needs to be unplugged and re-plugged. It's also prone to the Q and other ...

You could drill some holes in the case. The sticker would be slightly raised, but it would probably be ok. Soarers runs external leds as advertised. I ran my terminal M with some sloppy underkey leds for a bit. https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=20977
I got a strip of thin film mount leds ...

Windows beta4 feedback- Tested this on a Win10 box with a Model M.
'Read config from converter' gets me:
remapblock
layer 0
A FN1
B FN2
endblock
Which is not the config on the soarer's.
Also, clicking on the Layer 8 tab crashes the app:
error index:8, size: 8
Maybe this is fixed in 4.1, just saw ...

Those are the inserts for the stabilizers. They should pull out with a bit of effort. Not a big Cherry guy, but I think they are Costar stabilizers. If you need extras, search for 'Costar stabilizer insert'.

A Friend has a Dell branded Lexmark Model M
I've seen mention in the wiki, but here are a couple of rough pics. Outside of the rectangular badge, it's a pretty standard M.

Here are the original additional layouts that used to be available for download.

Muirium wrote: 03 Aug 2022, 18:01 Note that is a PS/2 to USB converter. Nothing ADB about it.

Two conversations going on in this thread. For the OP, that is indeed the correct converter to connect his PS/2 keyboard to a Mac.
For the AEK, that needs an ADB to USB. I made one with TMK, a Teensy, and an old SVGA cable.

Yeah, get a cardboard box and do it in the alley. If you overspray, no one will notice. If you're really in the city, you'll have to drive to the suburbs to buy it though.

One of the reasons I haven't paid that much attention to QMK is that it's focus seems to be replacing the controller firmware for modern custom keyboards. The project page doesn't mention using it as a converter for vintage boards, so I expect this is not something the developers have much interest ...

Slow updates here. The Omnikey got put on the back burner. In the meantime I did get some salvaged/cleaned switches. The salvage switches look the same, except for the alps logo being upside down compared to the originals in the Omnikey.
To try one last thing before resorting to the soldering iron ...

I managed to get a model F AT for 150 last week, not exactly cheap but pretty good for what prices are right now.


If you grabbed the one mislabeled as an XT, I want to see restoration pictures.

Here's a couple more still under $200
https://www.ebay.com/itm/165328985611
https://www.ebay.com ...

Poor condition, and the description is wrong:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/154829142823

Small update.
I've been busy with other things, but did some testing on the backspace key. While the switch doesn't want to work, I can get it to register by opening the switch and pressing the back leaf with a toothpick. This tells me the problem is with the switch, and I didn't damage the board ...

I’ve never seen anything like this before (perhaps for good reason). I do like how the keyboard appears to be holding its “arms” out for a hug - though that might just be me. Should probably spend less time with keyboards…

Rebranded PaperPort keyboard scanner. I did some work for a company that ...

Update: making it worse with the best intentions.
I pulled the remaining keycaps so I could clean them, then decided to tackle the backplate. Two of the screws had enough of the head exposed to simply torque off. The remaining three were tougher, with the bottom two having the heads completely ...