PS2 To USB Keyboard Converter Also Logs Your Keystrokes

August 16, 2011 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

[Shawn McCombs] is up to no good with his first Teensy project. The board you see above takes the input from a PS2 keyboard and converts it to a USB connection. Oh, and did we mention that it also keeps track of everything you type as well?

From the beginning the project was intended to be a keylogger. It’s a man-in-the-middle device that could be hidden inside the case of a keyboard, making it appear to be a stock USB keyboard. Data is stored to an SD card so an attacker would need to gain access to the hardware after the data he’s targeting has been typed.

It works mostly as [Shawn] expected. He is, however, having trouble handling the CTRL, ALT, Windows, and Caps Lock keys. If this were actually being used maliciously it would be a dead giveaway. Many secure Windows machine require a CRTL-ALT-DELETE keystroke to access the login screen.

Overhaul An Old Mechanical Keyboard

August 12, 2011 by Jesse Congdon 16 Comments

Deskthority forum user [lowpoly] recently posted a writeup on his complete overhaul of an Apple M0110 mechanical keyboard. Any one familiar with the satisfying clack of a good mechanical key under their fingers can appreciate the effort put into this project.

[lowpoly] removed the keyboard’s PCB, rewired the key matrix adding diodes, built in a teensy USB board, broke apart the mechanical switches and fit replacement springs and finally applied a generous portion of retr0bright to all of the aging plastic. Since the teensy has no mounting holes [lowpoly] had to create a mounting assembly out of some spare plastic. A usb mini cable is even fitted into the original RJ-11 connector. To compensate for the lack of PCB the key assembly was fitting with some rubber washers. To top off the whole thing some nice new rubber feet were taped to the underside of the M0110.

[lowpoly] reports that with the foam, new springs, and lack of PCB the keyboard is much quieter and easy to use. The end result is a slick retro looking modern keyboard. If you’ll excuse us we have to go rooting through some old storage bins to find our own ancient keyboards.

We have seen our share of vintage keyboard hacks which can be useful, impressive and sometimes just odd. This build keeps it down to a nice simple, functional, useful retrofit. Nice work!

God’s Own Keyboard, Now With Bluetooth

August 9, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 49 Comments

For decades a thunderous roar rose from the bowels of IBM keyboards like the animus of angry and forgotten gods. These keyboards have fallen silent of late, due only to incompatibility with newer hardware. Now, Model Ms have been given a reprieve from landfills or recycling centers because of the work of [wulax] of geekhack and his Model M Bluetooth controller board.

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Bluetooth Morse Code Keyboard For The Disabled

August 2, 2011 by Brian Benchoff 15 Comments

The team a Zunkworks wanted to build a device for people who can’t normally use a keyboard and mouse. The Bluetooth Morse code keyboard is what they came up with. This build gives the user full control over the keyboard and mouse using a single button or a sip & puff interface.

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Commodore 64 USB Controller Adapter For Your PC

July 31, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

commodore_64_controller_usb_interface

[Frank], like many people, has a soft spot in his heart for the Commodore 64. He prefers to play his C64 games on his computer nowadays, but likes using his old school Competition Pro rather than some modern controller with remapped buttons. The only problem with using the controller is that his new computer doesn’t have any ports that accommodate its 9-pin D-sub connector.

The VICE emulator maps keyboard inputs to controller actions, so he decided to build himself a D-sub to USB adapter that implements a virtual USB keyboard. He wrote a firmware package for the Freescale MC9S08JS16L microcontroller that allows him to send keypresses to his emulator whenever he performs an action with his Competition Pro joystick.

The circuit looks easier to duplicate than some other C64 interfaces we have seen before, and as you can see in the video below, it works quite well. We imagine that this setup can be used to connect all sorts of old input devices to modern PCs with little to no tweaking.

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Bass Hero Combines Guitar Hero With Dance Dance Revolution

July 27, 2011 by Mike Szczys 12 Comments

Standing up to play Dance Dance Revolution type games is sooooo much work. Thankfully, [Jebadiah0001] is taking the strenuous exercise component out of the game by altering a guitar controller to play dancing games.

He’s calling it Bass Hero because the DDR games only use four inputs, reducing the guitar controller to four string buttons like an electric bass would have. His implementation uses a GameCube controller to connect to the console. He took it apart to get at the button connections. Each string button on the guitar is connected on one side to a button on the GC controller, the other side is a common connection. But instead of pulling those straight to ground, he routes that signal through the strumming actuator. This way the player can get the correct buttons ready, then strum at just the right time to complete the circuit.

It certainly makes the harder levels of DDR quite a bit easier. See for yourself in the video after the break.

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Unlocking Wireless PC Locks

July 27, 2011 by Kevin Dady 17 Comments

[Mr.Pantz] pointed us to a web page we thought you would find interesting. It deals with hacking PC lock using a Universal Software Radio Peripheral (USRP) . Following the good practice of logging off or locking your workstation while your not at it, it is darn hard to get users to actually do it. These little gadgets are a 2 piece setup one being a usb dongle, and the other being a badge like device. If the badge is turned off or is a distance greater than ~30 feet, the signal is lost and the pc is locked.

From there all you really need to do is figure out what frequency the 2 are running at and what codes are flying around the air. Some careful eyeballing suggests that this operates in the 434MHz region much like remote lock dongles for your car, and once the device is apart some research of 2 of the IC’s on board confirms it. Using the GNU Radio spectrum analyzer a signal is quickly captured, dumped, and a script is created to send the signal back out, provided you have the correct hardware to do so.