VOGONS


First post, by cyberluke

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Hi, I browse whole internet and read a lot of old threads here. There is no active USB to PS/2 adapter in 2021 available anymore, not even on E-Bay.

I need this USB HID Keyboard Active Adapter to PC/AT DIN (or at least PS/2).

I want connect AJazz K510 keyboard to PC/AT 486DX2 66Mhz. The keyboard probably acts as USB HID and has RGB light support, so it needs 5V USB power.

My approach would be to take MBED Arduino compatible board with USB Host and add PC/AT DIN connector on a breadboard. Then write some software. But I have currently two jobs, so I'm very busy. I would rather make money with my job and pay someone to do something like that. Additional USB mouse to serial com support would be nice, but not required.

Original Startech active usb to ps/2 did cost $50.

My budget for this project is $200. It would support this retro gaming community and also I don't need to buy and store old keyboards, which is not cost effective.

Can someone make it or does someone know if there is some solution? For example some ATEN KVM with additional PS/2 to DIN adapter?

It has been many years and nobody did address this yet, so I'm willing to pay for the development and release it as opensource....because life is short 😉

Reply 1 of 13, by darry

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cyberluke wrote on 2021-05-15, 16:12:
Hi, I browse whole internet and read a lot of old threads here. There is no active USB to PS/2 adapter in 2021 available anymore […]
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Hi, I browse whole internet and read a lot of old threads here. There is no active USB to PS/2 adapter in 2021 available anymore, not even on E-Bay.

I need this USB HID Keyboard Active Adapter to PC/AT DIN (or at least PS/2).

I want connect AJazz K510 keyboard to PC/AT 486DX2 66Mhz. The keyboard probably acts as USB HID and has RGB light support, so it needs 5V USB power.

My approach would be to take MBED Arduino compatible board with USB Host and add PC/AT DIN connector on a breadboard. Then write some software. But I have currently two jobs, so I'm very busy. I would rather make money with my job and pay someone to do something like that. Additional USB mouse to serial com support would be nice, but not required.

Original Startech active usb to ps/2 did cost $50.

My budget for this project is $200. It would support this retro gaming community and also I don't need to buy and store old keyboards, which is not cost effective.

Can someone make it or does someone know if there is some solution? For example some ATEN KVM with additional PS/2 to DIN adapter?

It has been many years and nobody did address this yet, so I'm willing to pay for the development and release it as opensource....because life is short 😉

These are still available, apparently, but not cheap .

https://www.amazon.com/Adder-KVM-konverter-US … P/dp/B0050D6IQC

http://www.vetra.com/327Utext.html

EDIT : There is also this https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2510&start= There are variant apparently based on this design on the usual auction site

Source : https://deskthority.net/wiki/Converter

Reply 2 of 13, by cyberluke

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Hi, thank you for information.

1) Adder KVM konverter - shipping from US to EU is $80
2) Vetra - I'm not sure if they support modern USB HID keyboards, I sent them e-mail yesterday. The solution looks quite outdated in terms of compatibility with modern USB RGB mechanical keyboards. Someone would need to test it and verify.
3) Teensy project - this looks nice, but it will take me some time to go through the materials and I did not find anyone selling something like this on Tindie (would be cool)

But I found one awesome guy from Russia and he is selling USB HID to PC/XT on E-Bay. I asked him if he, by any chance, can make this for PC/AT. And voila! He is already working on a prototype USB HID keyboard to PC/AT. He sent me a video and will put it on E-Bay for around $40 + $10 shipping. No warranty and firmware is beta, of course. But there is working video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Z2KUSEFxYY

Reply 3 of 13, by darry

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AFAIK, all USB keyboards are HID compliant, whether old or new . The main potential issue that I see is that some (maybe many) gaming oriented USB keyboards actually present themselves as two HID keyboard devices on a logical level (AFAICR, this to get around limitations in the HID specification that would otherwise limit roll-over). This may cause issues with some converters .

Reply 4 of 13, by PcBytes

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Not really sure if it helps, but my Hama K210 keyboard, which is USB, works fine with an USB to PS/2 adapter connected to a DIN5 to PS/2 adapter just fine, although I think both adapters are passive.

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Reply 5 of 13, by cyberluke

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Hama is the lower tier brand, for simple stuff it is enough and keyboards like this do definitely work with the simple adapter. But I read a lot of reviews about modern gaming USB keyboards and users did report it is not working with the passive adapter, so I would not even try.

I just ordered the part from the guy I was talking about:
https://www.ebay.com/itm/144040576574

It is exactly what I need, tested even through USB hub, firmware can be upgraded. And it goes straight to PC/AT DIN. No need to put PS/2 to DIN converter. Back in the day, when I had my 486, I remember this PS/2 to DIN did not work with some keyboards. I had to test 5 keyboards and 2 of them did not work even it was PS/2.

Reply 6 of 13, by cyberluke

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darry wrote on 2021-05-15, 17:03:

EDIT : There is also this https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2510&start= There are variant apparently based on this design on the usual auction site
Source : https://deskthority.net/wiki/Converter

This Soarer, I just went through it. It is what I found before. It is only if you want to convert PC/AT keyboard to USB. Not the other way around. USB HID to PC/AT is something else and I have not found Soarer's stuff would cover this. You need USB female. And software-wise it is completely different solution.

Reply 7 of 13, by darry

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cyberluke wrote on 2021-05-15, 21:22:
darry wrote on 2021-05-15, 17:03:

EDIT : There is also this https://deskthority.net/viewtopic.php?f=7&t=2510&start= There are variant apparently based on this design on the usual auction site
Source : https://deskthority.net/wiki/Converter

This Soarer, I just went through it. It is what I found before. It is only if you want to convert PC/AT keyboard to USB. Not the other way around. USB HID to PC/AT is something else and I have not found Soarer's stuff would cover this. You need USB female. And software-wise it is completely different solution.

You are absolutely right about the Soarer, sorry, I misread .

Reply 8 of 13, by cyberluke

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For a future reference, found article and Arduino library for USB -> PS/2 -> PC XT

article:
http://www.ccgcpu.com/2019/02/14/the-xt-part- … rnish-keyboard/

STM32 / Arduino and friends library + example:
https://github.com/kesrut/pcxtkbd/blob/master … XT_KEYBOARD.ino

I remember working with this MBED board (IDE running in cloud for C/C++ and Arduino support) and it has USB Host support with USB HID keyboard example: https://www.seeedstudio.com/Arch-Pro-p-1677.html

Reply 9 of 13, by cyclone3d

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For USB keyboards, the ones with microcontrollers in them will never work with even an active USB to PS/2 or AT adapter from what I found when looking before.

Feel free to prove me wrong though.

In addition to those mentioned here and on the Wiki, there is also one made by NTI with a model number of USB-PS2-R for PCs and a model number of USB-SUN-R for SUN
http://www.nti1.se/pdf/man038.pdf
https://www.kvm-switches-online.com/usb-ps2-r.html

I have a couple of these I scored off of eBay at least a year ago for less than half of what they go for new. They have no perceptible lag time whatsoever from what I could tell.

Yamaha modified setupds and drivers
Yamaha XG repository
YMF7x4 Guide
Aopen AW744L II SB-LINK

Reply 11 of 13, by cyberluke

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Yes, I bought a Teensy based solution and helped to fix the code as well. One user is selling it on Ebay, his name is Retromos. But he is stuck in Russia now and they ban electronics export…

Reply 12 of 13, by turbo.blue

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hi @cyberluke I'm trying to find a solution as well. Retromos device seems fairly basic to me. Looks like a USB host along with an Arduino microcontroller. Would you please be willing to share the source code?

Reply 13 of 13, by cyberluke

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Yes, of course. I did not get any notification for your reply, strange! Better PM me next time. I can share, I also would like to know how to make this hardware. There is some extra logic converter - custom board (can be found on AliExpress).