New wireless keyboard adapter for A500

[t33bu]

I have created a wireless keyboard adapter for Amiga 500. See the [ Show youtube player ] for a demo with a PS/2 keyboard. The adapter plugs directly into the keyboard connector in the main board.

The design documentation and code for the adapter are published in https://github.com/t33bu/wireless-amiga-keyboard.

There is not yet further description of the project, as I have agreed to publish the details first in Finnish computer culture magazine Skrolli (forthcoming issue 2/2018).

[IanP]

Nice work. The PS2 to Amiga keycode mapping tables are a bit limited at the moment though. It looks as though most PS2 keycodes with no corresponding physical Amiga key just get sent as PS2 codes to the receiver where they may produce strange results. Some physical Amiga keys have no corresponding mapping in the tables, numeric pad ( and ) and the Amiga international keys raw codes 0x2B and 0x30 for example. The ( and ) keys aren't much of an issue as I doubt much if an software insists on using the numeric pad versions (I'm assuming they are available from the main cluster somehow in all language layouts, if not maybe a key combination like a modifier+numeric pad / and * in either your decoder or the Amiga keymap files could be implemented). This mapping table also omits the numeric pad ( and ) http://wiki.amigaos.net/wiki/Keymap_...#Raw_Key_Table but includes many more mappings. The international keys are there but one of them clashes with your direct mapping of the PS2 \| legend key to the Amiga \| key, the Amiga \| key is not mapped by them.

There are lots of PC to Amiga keyboard adaptors around, it would be nice if they were more standardised. Some are reconfigurable, I like the option of swapping the windows and alt keys on the Lyra for example. I don't know if the MCU you are using can work the same way if not maybe a jumper for that option could be added to the transmitter board.

With the vampire, terrible fire and other boards lots of people are adding internal CF hard drives to their 500's these days. Would a header for hard drive activity status on the receiver for controlling the third LED be worth considering?

[t33bu]

Thanks for the comments. I will fix the code issues at some point.

I wasn't actually aiming at full mapping between PS/2 and Amigas, as it would be significant work with all the standardized scancode sets and international keyboards. Basically, this code just maps (almost) all the keys that my Swedish layout Amiga 500 has, of which some I figured out by pressing the keys and observing the scancode. The scancondes are thus lacking in this respect.

Due to limited RAM, I had to already put the scancodes in the MCU (ATtiny2313) program memory. Of course, you would have more memory with another MCU.

Currently its using the third led for Caps Lock, but yes it could be more useful as hard drive led.

My next step is to implement a switch that enables to change between internal keyboard and external wireless keyboard.

[IanP]

Originally Posted by t33bu

Currently its using the third led for Caps Lock, but yes it could be more useful as hard drive led.

My next step is to implement a switch that enables to change between internal keyboard and external wireless keyboard.

Stupid of me I forgot one of those LEDs was the caps lock. I'm used to a laptop where you only know caps are on when you start typing and the amiga having the caps lock LED in the caps lock keycap. Best to keep one of the keyboard LEDs as a caps lock indicator and maybe have power status LED(s) on the transmitter box or even some funky RGB LEDs for status of keyboard and amiga power (the receiver would have to tell the transmitter regularly the A500 is still powered up for it to know soon after that it's been switched of or lost contact).

Do you need to "switch" between external and internal keyboards, could you just take input from both? Could be interesting/confusing I guess with conflicting caps lock states.

[t33bu]

Originally Posted by IanP

the receiver would have to tell the transmitter regularly the A500 is still powered up for it to know soon after that it's been switched of or lost contact.

Yes, this feature is missing from the design, it would need some sort of keepalive message.

Additional leds in the transmitter enclosure would be helpful to indicate different states of the devices and communication link.

Originally Posted by IanP

Do you need to "switch" between external and internal keyboards, could you just take input from both? Could be interesting/confusing I guess with conflicting caps lock states.

I guess you could copy Caps Lock and led states across keyboards.

Intriguing feature would be cross-keyboard resets detected at the receiver side