European IBM Trackpoint II keyboard?

[vivalarevolución]

So I just bought this off Ebay, and nobody else seemed to want it, because I won with the only bid. I was surprised because it's a M13/Trackpoint II keyboard. I imagine the foreign layout scared away most timid Americans. The only information that I can find on this keyboard is from clicky keyboards. Says it's a French layout: http://www.clickykeyboards.com/index.cf ... /id/151957

So does anybody know anything about this keyboard? Here are a couple photos that came with the listing:

front keyboard.jpg (166.05 KiB) Viewed 7641 times

back keyboard.jpg (185.03 KiB) Viewed 7641 times

[Halvar]

What would you like to know? Anyway, congratulations, it's a French-Canadian ISO layout Model M, with buckling springs and a trackpoint. A very nice keyboard IMO, I'd definitely buy it if I saw it on ebay here in Europe for a decent price, but M13s come up very seldomly around here (and shipping them overseas costs a fortune).

[vivalarevolución]

What would you like to know? Anyway, congratulations, it's a French-Canadian ISO layout Model M, with buckling springs and a trackpoint. A very nice keyboard IMO, I'd definitely buy it if I saw it on ebay here in Europe for a decent price, but M13s come up very seldomly around here (and shipping them overseas costs a fortune).

I guess the layout is French-Canadian, not just French, as you said. Would a Frenchman have any use for this layout, or is mostly useful to Quebecers and other French Canadians?

I guess I would like to know if anybody else has owns or has seen this board before, perhaps if they had more info than I could determine from the photos. I have never seen an ISO M13, and that's what really caught my eye with this one. I wonder how many ISO M13's are out there, and in what language.

Just wanted to share my little find of a unique board. I love that ISO enter. We need to have another midwest meetup so I can show this off.

[Peter]

Nice find !

I guess you could say the French-Canadian layout is really more French-UK/US layout ..

Canadian_French_text.svg.png (69.66 KiB) Viewed 7598 times

The real French do it their very own way, as always :
(Note how the numbers are shifted !)

KB_France.svg.png (72.49 KiB) Viewed 7603 times

It helps a bit that it's a IBM, the caps have the same profile,
but still, quite different layouts .

[Halvar]

There's a meme on GH about this layout:


http://geekhack.org/index.php?topic=418 ... msg1008056

The layout used in France is much more crazy than this (AZERTY instead of QUERTY).

What I especially like about this IBM keyboard layout are the nice graphical legends on PgUp, PgDn and Home.

About the trackpoint (you probably know about the more NSFW names it has): I read that these often break on M13s, so if yours works, you can consider yourself even more lucky.

I can't say a lot more about how rare this is, but given how relatively small the francocanadian community is, I would guess that you should easily find a buyer there for this great buckling spring keyboard should you ever want to sell it. This is not only of interest to collectors, but it's a keyboard any writer/journalist/student should be happy to use IMO.

[Peter]

It's still :

olivettimp1grey.jpg (42.05 KiB) Viewed 7588 times

[vivalarevolución]

Nice find !

I guess you could say the French-Canadian layout is really more French-UK/US layout ..

Canadian_French_text.svg.png

The real French do it their very own way, as always :
(Note how the numbers are shifted !)

KB_France.svg.png

It helps a bit that it's a IBM, the caps have the same profile,
but still, quite different layouts .

This might seem like a dumb question to some, but how does one activate those third legends on the numbers keys and elsewhere? Is that what the AltGr key is for? I have never used an ISO keyboard.

[Muirium]

You got it. And UK ISO is the daftest of them all: still got Alt Gr because we're ISO, but almost no keys even have symbols for it. Alt Gr is so rarely used here no one even knows what it's for. I think it's down to pretty much just "€" now… (I use Macs and use Option instead, whatever the keyboard.)

[scottc]

You got it. And UK ISO is the daftest of them all: still got Alt Gr because we're ISO, but almost no keys even have symbols for it. Alt Gr is so rarely used here no one even knows what it's for. I think it's down to pretty much just "€" now… (I use Macs and use Option instead, whatever the keyboard.)

Alt Gr is useful for Irish letters (and I assume Scottish too) because the Irish layout is essentially UK + Alt Gr gives you accented vowels. But then again, I rarely actually need to use Irish accents.

[Peter]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/QWERTY#UK-Extended_Layout

[Muirium]

Alt Gr is useful for Irish letters (and I assume Scottish too) because the Irish layout is essentially UK + Alt Gr gives you accented vowels. But then again, I rarely actually need to use Irish accents.

Ah wuldnæ ken aboot aw that.

Scottish Gaelic does indeed use a bunch of diacriticals. Or so it looks to the English speakers here, like everywhere. All you need is to coöpt a rôle and you might as well be writing Chinese. In any case, I've been spoiled by the way these things work on the Mac for donkeys years. Dead keys make diacriticals dead easy.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

Alt Gr is useful for Irish letters (and I assume Scottish too) because the Irish layout is essentially UK + Alt Gr gives you accented vowels. But then again, I rarely actually need to use Irish accents.

At least in Windows, Alt Gr is nothing more than Ctrl + Alt (almost …) so you don't need it at all; I use Ctrl + Alt as I find Alt Gr too awkward to hit. (Mixing the two with AutoHotkey causes jammed keys.)

[vivalarevolución]

Got it yesterday. This thing is in pristine condition, clean, and I love the ISO enter. The trackpoint works great and is a lot more responsive than the Unicomp EnduraPro. Also, one piece keycaps, which is standard on the M13, I believe.

I poked around in the OS language settings, but I cannot figure out how to get baby to type in French Canadian. Whatever. This keyboard is still a barrel of fun.

[Samir]

I have the US version of the M13 and mine are also one piece keys. An interesting thing I've found out about mine is that you only have to use one of the ps2 connectors with a USB adapter for both the keyboard and trackpoint to work.

[vivalarevolución]

I have the US version of the M13 and mine are also one piece keys. An interesting thing I've found out about mine is that you only have to use one of the ps2 connectors with a USB adapter for both the keyboard and trackpoint to work.

Interesting. Did you connect the keyboard Ps/2 port or the mouse PS/2 port?

[Samir]

I have the US version of the M13 and mine are also one piece keys. An interesting thing I've found out about mine is that you only have to use one of the ps2 connectors with a USB adapter for both the keyboard and trackpoint to work.

Interesting. Did you connect the keyboard Ps/2 port or the mouse PS/2 port?

Keyboard PS/2 port to a Belkin adapter which I don't have the model number of with me.

The only oddity I ran into in that configuration is that the left alt key wouldn't work while it work fine when plugged in normally. I just wrote it off as a conflict between the keyboard and the adapter. When I tried to plug in both the mouse and keyboard to the adapter, oddly enough neither worked.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

How ................. how is that even possible?

Since when has PS/2 been able to accommodate a mouse and keyboard simultaneously down the same cable?

Hm ... apparently some computers allow both mouse and keyboard to share the same port by using the redundant pins on a PS/2 connector (2 and 6), but this requires a special Y cable to split this out into two normal PS/2 connectors (pins 2 and 6 map to 1 and 5 respectively for the mouse socket).

However, in this scenario, we have a keyboard that (for whatever reason) ignores the mouse cable and sends both sets of data down the same wire (not sure if this is using 2 and 6 or whether it's multiplexing) and the Belkin adapter magically understands this arrangement. Since Belkin have nothing to with the converter IC, it would be interesting to see whether this functionality works for all the different Belkin adapters (as the [wiki]Belkin F5U119[/wiki] for example has used at least two different converter ICs).

Maybe there's a DIP switch somewhere within the keyboard to control whether the mouse signal uses the keyboard cable or the mouse cable.

Very odd.

[Samir]

How ................. how is that even possible?

Since when has PS/2 been able to accommodate a mouse and keyboard simultaneously down the same cable?

Hm ... apparently some computers allow both mouse and keyboard to share the same port by using the redundant pins on a PS/2 connector (2 and 6), but this requires a special Y cable to split this out into two normal PS/2 connectors (pins 2 and 6 map to 1 and 5 respectively for the mouse socket).

However, in this scenario, we have a keyboard that (for whatever reason) ignores the mouse cable and sends both sets of data down the same wire (not sure if this is using 2 and 6 or whether it's multiplexing) and the Belkin adapter magically understands this arrangement. Since Belkin have nothing to with the converter IC, it would be interesting to see whether this functionality works for all the different Belkin adapters (as the [wiki]Belkin F5U119[/wiki] for example has used at least two different converter ICs).

Maybe there's a DIP switch somewhere within the keyboard to control whether the mouse signal uses the keyboard cable or the mouse cable.

Very odd.

I know! It was quite wacky to me at first, but then I realized I shouldn't worry about it if it works. My thoughts are that the two cables off the keyboard both somehow support both functions in case someone puts the wrong one in the wrong place (mouse in kb or vice versa). I can't recall if there's an indicator that tells which cable end is for what function. If there isn't, then this starts to make a little sense.

I'm really dying to know what the model number of that adapter is now! Too bad it's 1000 miles away from me right now. I will have to remember to check and post back here!

[Daniel Beardsmore]

It would be nice to know all the same .............

[Muirium]

It's the redundant pins, I'll bet, as described in a footnote on the Wikipedia's pinout diagram:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS/2_connector

PS/2 never made a lick of sense to me when I used it as a novice. Two identical but not identical ports. Which were often combined into one on a laptop? Madness.

But the redundant pins getting mouse clock and data makes a lot of sense. It's multiplexing on the cheap: the cable has the lines to support both devices anyway, so do it. If only the standard had been smart enough to integrate this — keyboard on pins a and b, mouse on x and y — then all PS/2 ports could have been multimode and colour matching would have been unnecessary. Still not as adaptable and elegant as ADB, but definitely better than what we wound up with in the wild.

[Samir]

It would be nice to know all the same .............

I'll definitely find out on the next trip to that location. Unfortunately it's 1000 miles away right now.

[Samir]

It's the redundant pins, I'll bet, as described in a footnote on the Wikipedia's pinout diagram:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PS/2_connector

PS/2 never made a lick of sense to me when I used it as a novice. Two identical but not identical ports. Which were often combined into one on a laptop? Madness.

But the redundant pins getting mouse clock and data makes a lot of sense. It's multiplexing on the cheap: the cable has the lines to support both devices anyway, so do it. If only the standard had been smart enough to integrate this — keyboard on pins a and b, mouse on x and y — then all PS/2 ports could have been multimode and colour matching would have been unnecessary. Still not as adaptable and elegant as ADB, but definitely better than what we wound up with in the wild.

That makes sense if they did that then.

I learned something new as I never understood why the ps2 port was introduced when the standard 6 pin and serial mouse was fine. Now I see that it was a more advanced form factor--one of the only things that survived from IBM reinventing the PC with their ps2 lineup. (It was funny to see how similar Microchannel and PCI were.)

PC designers should have really eliminated the mouse/kb specific ports. I feel like an idiot knowing that people couldn't plug in things properly so they needed to color-code everything for 3-year olds. If you can't read and plug in the cables, then should you really be using a computer?

[Daniel Beardsmore]

It's the redundant pins, I'll bet, as described in a footnote on the Wikipedia's pinout diagram …

Then you have to a) have a use case for IBM having separate mouse and keyboard cables, then running the mouse signal down the keyboard cable, and leaving the mouse cable dead, and b) USB to PS/2 controllers supporting this weird arrangement when they, too, have separate mouse and keyboard cables.

Maybe it is indeed designed to allow TrackPoint keyboards to be connect to IBM laptops with only a single mouse/keyboard port, but in something like a Belkin, why would you care? Whoever designed that chip that Belkin used, must have ended up with it being on the extreme use case checklist :P (I don't know if the BlueCube and other Belkin converters also all support this or not.)

[Samir]

(I don't know if the BlueCube and other Belkin converters also all support this or not.)

I know that the Belkin adapter I have looks a lot like the generic ones that I've seen at Best Buy (local US electronics retailer.) If there is only one chipset in these models, it's pretty popular.

[Daniel Beardsmore]

I don't know how many chipsets there are. F5U119-E is the good one with the same Cypress chipset as the Blue Cube. Mine is a F5U119vE1 with the frequent reset bug. There's also F5U119eaE, F5U119cpE, F5U119v and F5U119vE, with unknown characteristics, and possibly others.

[Samir]

So it's been years and while this isn't the part number off the exact same one I'm using with the trackpoint keyboard, it's a twin of it visually and still made by Belkin--it's part number is f5u119-e.

I'll see if I can remember to check the one attached to the trackpoint to see if it's the same one. Someone bump this if there's not a reply by the end of November 2015. I should have the info by then.

[Samir]

So it's 2016 now and I just looked at the M15 and I can't find the Belkin adapter that's usually attached to it.

[andrewjoy]

Belkin adaptor ? Like a PS2 to USB

Try his one http://www.lindy.co.uk/cables-adapters- ... cable-p438

I use it all the time and it works just fine with 2 high power devices connected to it ( SSK and RS232 CST trackball)

Its like a blue cube but for mice too!

[JBert]

So it's 2016 now and I just looked at the M15 and I can't find the Belkin adapter that's usually attached to it.

It's harder to find an M15 for a decent price than to find a PS/2 converter. In fact you could even attach a custom-built converter with macros and other features.

[andrewjoy]

Yeh but that no worky for mouse! The lindy is the plug and forget option the converter has all the funky cool stuff for the keyboard part!