The Sinclair QL Forum

Don't bring me into this!

I am currently working with someone on a general purpose PIC that can use any HID USB mound and keyboard and convert them to differential mouse and 8 pin byte of keypress plus shift/tab/alt/etc for general purpose use on embedded designs... They're a retro Commodore person, so it will be mainly aimed at that first.

vanpeebles wrote: QL Laptop!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kcwa1y1r9oxqct/pQL.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f3ng2nmzisdn9fg/pQL2.jpg?dl=0

Dave wrote:I am currently working with someone on a general purpose PIC that can use any HID USB mound and keyboard and convert them to differential mouse and 8 pin byte of keypress plus shift/tab/alt/etc for general purpose use on embedded designs... They're a retro Commodore person, so it will be mainly aimed at that first.

That would be (apart from using USB instead of PS/2) the opposite direction. What is needed here, is matrix keyboard to PS/2 (or something else the Q68 can easily use).

Cristian wrote:

vanpeebles wrote: QL Laptop!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kcwa1y1r9oxqct/pQL.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f3ng2nmzisdn9fg/pQL2.jpg?dl=0

Much want!!

vanpeebles wrote:

Cristian wrote:

vanpeebles wrote: QL Laptop!

https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kcwa1y1r9oxqct/pQL.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f3ng2nmzisdn9fg/pQL2.jpg?dl=0

Much want!!

Hi,

I like the case, maybe not that screen size.

But a more important question would be: Who would design such a case?

And would everyone want to pay for the development cost?

http://www.ti.com/product/tca9539-q1/datasheet

Is the sort of chip I was meaning, you would basically scan the keyboard matrix VIA I2C and let a native driver sort out the keymap.

Looks like a suitable chip, 3.3V supply but 5V tolerant. It can easily be configured to have 8 outputs and 8 inputs.
It would allow the Q68 to remain I2C master, no hardware change there. The only issue would be the driver.
A QL-side board would only require this cheap chip, 8 diodes, 10 resistors, 2 capacitors and the connectors.

Are the QL keyboard connectors still available?

The advantage of using a keyboard converter would be that the QL mainboard can be removed, so the whole thing would have very low power consumption.
On the other hand, removing the QL mainboard makes it harder to re-convert to original state.

Derek_Stewart wrote:

vanpeebles wrote:

Cristian wrote: https://www.dropbox.com/s/0kcwa1y1r9oxqct/pQL.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/f3ng2nmzisdn9fg/pQL2.jpg?dl=0

Much want!!

But a more important question would be: Who would design such a case?

And would everyone want to pay for the development cost?

Well, the visual concepts sometimes become real, sometimes die. And yes, your questions are crucial. The answers depend on several factors: for example, maybe it could be possible to modify an existing case, or maybe we could consider a modus operandi similar to the ZX Spectrum Next one. Of course from different choices come different costs and results.