VOGONS


First post, by dulu

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As the title suggests, I planned to use a Logitech MX Mechanical keyboard and a mouse, and switch between my main PC and a retro machine (440BX). Unfortunately, the Logitech Bolt receiver doesn't work in the BIOS. The only sign of life occurs when I hold down the F8 key—that’s when the PC speaker starts beeping. The keyboard works fine in Windows 98. Has anyone encountered a similar issue and, by some miracle, knows a solution? I’d really like to stick with the MX Mechanical, but unfortunately, it only comes with the Bolt receiver. I just borrowed an older Logitech MX Keys keyboard from a friend, which uses the Unifying receiver—and that one works flawlessly in the BIOS.

Reply 1 of 5, by rasz_pl

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OC? Bits und Bolts showed how wireless USB mouse receiver was preventing him from running stable OC on slot1 system.
You could try powered USB hub out of desperation

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS Zenith Z-386 MFM-300 ZBIOS disassembly

Reply 2 of 5, by HwAoRrDk

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Coincidentally, I just saw a blog post over on Big Mess O' Wires saying that they just fixed an ADB-USB Wombat firmware bug related to Logitech Bolt receivers, because they present an unusually large HID Report Descriptor to the host system. Might be the same issue, that legacy USB keyboard support in the BIOS doesn't support HID Report Descriptors larger than 256 bytes.

Reply 3 of 5, by rasz_pl

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Oh if its logic problem then OP would need something smart between, like a Pico or ESP32 talking to receiver and passing data to PC. Makes this a whole hardware project just to use keyboard.

https://github.com/raszpl/sigrok-disk FM/MFM/RLL decoder
https://github.com/raszpl/FIC-486-GAC-2-Cache-Module (AT&T Globalyst)
https://github.com/raszpl/386RC-16 ram board
https://github.com/raszpl/Zenith_ZBIOS Zenith Z-386 MFM-300 ZBIOS disassembly

Reply 4 of 5, by jmarsh

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The BIOS shouldn't even need to read the HID descriptor; this is the whole reason USB keyboard/mouse have a boot protocol that uses fixed-format reporting.

Reply 5 of 5, by HwAoRrDk

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True. I suppose there's always the possibility that the Bolt receiver doesn't actually support Boot protocol mode.