When I bought an ancient IBM 5150 without a keyboard, I first assumed that I could just use one of my old PS/2 keyboards. Well, I learned that this is not true... So I built a small adapter that lets you use a PS/2 keyboard with an IBM 5150 or 5160 (XT) computer. It was a great learning experience :-)
Building the adapter is quite simple. All you need is:
- a 5-pin DIN 41524 plug
- a PS/2 socket
- an ATtiny85 microcontroller (optionally with socket)
- a prototype board
Solder the PS/2 and DIN 41524 connectors according to the schematics and adapter.fzz
Use the Arduino IDE to build the code and upload it to an ATtiny85.
| File | Description |
|---|---|
| capture/* | Bunch of protocol captures, captured with saleae Logc 1.2.18 |
| schematics/adapter.fzz | schematics for the breadboard in Fritzing |
| schematics/adapter_bb.png | PNG export of breadboard schematics |
| schematics/adapter_bb.svg | SVG export of breadboard schematics |
| schematics/DIN-Stecker-Pinbelegung-AT-Keyboard.svg | XT connector's pinout |
| schematics/ps2-pcb.svg | PS/2 connector's pinout |
| ps2-to-xt-adapter.ino | Code for the actual protocol conversion |
| ScanCodeMapping.tsv | Tab-separated file containg the scan code mapping from XT to PS/2. Collected from all over the internet, most prominently from Adam Chapweske's PS/2 pages |
| gen_mapping.py | Python script that reads ScanCodeMapping.tsv and generates the translation tables used in ps2-to-xt-adapter.ino |
| README.md | This file. |