The keyboard and the goal :keyboard:
The keyboard is an ADB Apple Keyboard II, with the french layout. This keyboard was laying around, not used anymore (old world Mac), but sill in good shape.
The goal is to use it on any everyday modern computer. It's an upcycling challenge!
Binaries and installation
To build an ADB <-> USB converter, the following items are needed :
- Teensy 2.0 (or whatever board with Atmega 32U4)
- Mini-din 4 female connector
- 1-10 kOhms pull-up resistor
The female ADB connector is soldered to the microcontroller with respect to the following pin out.The pull-up resistor is soldered between the DATA and the VCC pins.
ADB female socket from the front :
,--_--. ATmega 32U4 Pin
/ o4 3o \ 1: DATA PD0, D3 (arduino micro clone)
| o2 1o | 2: Power SW PD1
- === - 3: VCC
`-___-' 4: GND
The firmware program to decode the key sended by the keyboard is built with
tmk_keyboard software and need
to be upload with Teensy Loader.
Since the keyboard has a French Mac Layout, some adjustments have been made to
the Windows input method. Find below the installer. After a restart the input
method is accessible through the meta + space keys.
And voilà, you can type with your old keyboard!
Bonus
ADB is also compatible with the mouse. So the old 1 button apple mouse works also.
Final thoughts
This post was typed with the AKII. It was very comfortable and easy to write.
Some features need new habits. For example arrows are placed in a strange way,
because of the small form factor of the keyboard. But since the keyboard has a
keypad it's possible to use the arrow with the shift modifier.
The first, end, page up and page down are also accessible
that way. And finally, on Macintosh the alt gr key does not exist but
alt + crtl does the same.
The only missing feature is the suppr key :'( and I note that I use it quite
a lot.
Compilation and tools used
Here are the instructions to install the tools and build the binary on Windows.
AVR Toolchain
To compile the software the AVR Toolchain from Atmel is needed, now
distributed by Microchip,
AVR and Arm Toolchains.
The tool chain is installed to the directory avr_toolchain.
The directory avr_toolchain\bin must be registered in the PATH variable, in
the environment variables from Windows.
Installation and compilation of tmk_keyboard
Clone the repo with git clone :
git clone https://github.com/tmk/tmk_keyboard
Update the submodule with :
git submodule update --init
For ADB go to tmk_keyboard/converter/adb_usb/ and run the following commands :
make -f Makefile.rev1 KEYMAP=akIIfr
The KEYMAP is downloadable here
unimap_akIIfr.c.
Only one key has been changed, the key PEQL to SLSH, in order to have for
the = of the keypad the same key next to right shift.
The hex file is then upload to the Teensy with the Teensy loader.
Mac Keymap
The Mac keymap for french layout is a bit specific. The Microsoft Keyboard Layout Editor is used to create this specific keymap.
To install the sofwtare, the .NET framework 2.0 is required. The automatic downloader doesn't work. Here is the link to find it on Microsoft website.
Comments