Kind of a kvm for amiga 3000

[simon_m74]

Hi

I'm building a control system for 4 vr machines (that use amiga 3000s as base)
It will be a pc, controlling a USB relay set, to simulate amifa keyboard presses.

At first, the plan was to use an amiga 500 keyboard pcb and wire one in to each amiga, but that would mean I need 4 keyboard pcbs.

I'm thinking now to try to use just one keyboard controller, connecting all 4 amigas to it...
The pcb would be externally powered, and the relays would switch clock and/or data.

Any ideas on this?

Simon

[Jope]

Relays to send digital signals? That won't work. Use a microcontroller's GPIO pins to send the data and clock instead.

[simon_m74]

I already have relays linked up,

The relays dont act as data `producers`, but are directly wired in, in place of the the keyboard.
Relay 1 wired in as number key 1, and so on till Number key 5.

Relay 6 & 7 are the `keyboard choosers`.
So
R2 & R7 on - means game 2 will start on machine 1
R5 & R8 on - means game 5 will start on machine 2

So schematically described: (for game 1)
Pin 4 on IC (key 1 column) wired into Relay 1 Normally open connection.
Relay 1 Common, is wired to both Relays 7 & 8 Common connection.
Relay 7 normally open is to Pin 35 on the IC for keyboard 1
Relay 8 normally open is to Pin 35 on the IC for keyboard 2

So energising R1, key one is `pressed` - but to complete the circuit, R 7 or 8 need to be energised - which decide which system the `key-press` is sent to.


Its currently working fine..

I need to add 2 more systems. I can do this by adding more relays and 2 more keyboard controllers..
But as the controllers are not cheap - I`m thinking can I use the `keyboard chooser`

This why I`m thinking of `re-locating` relay 7 & 8.

So R1, when energised, will simulate the key-press of number 1 on ALL keyboards.
But R7-8-9-10 are enabling the data signal (or clock?) from one keyboard at a time to the chosen Amiga.

[sneeker]

Use a lyra keyboard adapter on each a3000 to you can use pc keyboards and connect them all to a normal ps2 kvm. then maybe some way of stuffing data into the kvm? (usb to ps2 adapter?) unless you can just use a keyboard?

[Jope]

Ok, the signals aren't so fast that the relays would degrade the signal too much, go for it. :-)

[Hewitson]

I'm sorry, but using relays for this is not the right approach. Any basic MCU will be more than capable of doing what you desire, and it'll do a much better job of it, too.