A500 External Keyboard

[Sim085]

Hello, is there any "correct" way how to connect an external keyboard to an A500 while still also keeping the inbuilt keyboard connected?

I have an A500 and a PC and I would like to KVM between these. I can see that for mouse there are usb to amiga adapters. For keyboard I found this; but couldn't understand why soldering is needed instead of using the existing keyboard connector.

http://webpages.charter.net/jeff.art.../kbd_conn.html

Anyone knows why?

[Daedalus]

This needs soldering because the A1200 doesn't have a keyboard connector suitable for directly connecting an Amiga keyboard input, so you need to solder to the MPU or the CIA, or use upturned PLCC sockets to achieve the same effect. The A500 has a pin header that carries these signals so you don't need to solder - you just connect the right pins to the header. Using both keyboards *should* be possible, since that's basically what the A1200 hack you linked to does, but I don't know if there might be any long-term effects from using both simultaneously.

[Sim085]

So I am pretty safe with the A500. However you got me curies... how does the A1200 inbuilt keyboard communicate with the Amiga if not through pins?

I mean how is it different from the A500?

Originally Posted by Daedalus

This needs soldering because the A1200 doesn't have a keyboard connector suitable for directly connecting an Amiga keyboard input, so you need to solder to the MPU or the CIA, or use upturned PLCC sockets to achieve the same effect. The A500 has a pin header that carries these signals so you don't need to solder - you just connect the right pins to the header. Using both keyboards *should* be possible, since that's basically what the A1200 hack you linked to does, but I don't know if there might be any long-term effects from using both simultaneously.

[Daedalus]

The A1200 is different because the keyboard controller is on the motherboard, not in the keyboard itself like in the A500. So, the keyboard matrix in the A1200 is connected to the keyboard, and the keyboard signals (clock, data, reset and power) that are connected from the A500 keyboard to the computer with a cable, are simply connected on the PCB on the A1200.