Taking Over The Amazing Control Panel Of A Vintage Video Switcher

November 28, 2020 by Mike Szczys 15 Comments

Where does he get such wonderful toys? [Glenn] snagged parts of a Grass Valley Kalypso 4-M/E video ~~mixer~~ switcher control surface from eBay and since been reverse engineering the button and display modules to bend them to his will. The hardware dates back to the turn of the century and the two modules would have been laid out with up to a few dozen others to complete a video ~~mixing~~ switcher console.

[Glenn’s] previous adventures delved into a strip of ten backlit buttons and gives us a close look at each of the keyswitches and the technique he used to pull together his own pinout and schematic of that strip. But things get a lot hairier this time around. The long strip seen above is a “machine control plane” module and includes a dozen addressible character displays, driven by a combination of microcontrollers and FPGAs. The square panel is a “Crosspoint Switch Matrix” module include eight individual 32 x 32 LCDs drive by three dedicated ICs that can display in red, green, or amber.

[Glen] used an STM8 Nucleo 64 to interface with the panels and wrote a bit of code to help map out what each pin on each machine control plane connector might do. He was able to stream out some packets from the plane that changed as he pressed buttons, and ended up feeding back a brute-force of that packet format to figure out the LED display protocols.

But the LCDs on the crosspoint switch were a more difficult nut to crack. He ended up going back to the original source of the equipment (eBay) to get a working control unit that he could sniff. He laid out a man-in-the-middle board that has a connector on either side with a pin header in the middle for his logic analyzer. As with most LCDs, the secret sauce was the initialization sequence — an almost impossible thing to brute force, yet exceedingly simple to sniff when you have a working system. So far he has them running under USB control, and if you are lucky enough to have some of this gear in your parts box, [Glen] has painstakingly recorded all of the details you need to get them up and running.

Atreus Gets A TrackPoint And Layer LEDs

November 27, 2020 by Kristina Panos 7 Comments

Fancy, split keyboards are cool and all, and they can really help with repetitive strain injury issues depending on a lot of different factors. But the big, glaring problem is that they often lack nice features that regular keyboards have — things like a number pad, media buttons, or in [discordia]’s case, a ThinkPad-style pointing stick. Fortunately, there’s a perfect spot for one between the two halves of the Keyboardio Atreus.

[discordia] is happy with the Atreus, but the whole layers thing can take some getting used to. Since Atreus only has 44 keys, it utilizes a layering system to change their function to cover all the keys you’d find on a full keyboard. After getting stuck in one rarely-used layer for a while, they decided to remedy the situation with some RGB LEDs to indicate the active layer. If you’ve got an Atreus that could use a few upgrades, check out [discordia]’s step-by-step instructions for adding a trackpoint and one-wire RGB LEDs.

If you have an old enough ThinkPad on your hands, then you may want to liberate the clicky keyboard, too.

Adding USB To A Keyboard The Way It Used To Be Done

November 26, 2020 by Jenny List 20 Comments

The world of custom keyboards has over the years developed its work into an art form, as mechanical key switches meet USB-HID capable microcontrollers for a plethora of designs as individual as their creators. This was however not always the case, and from the days of 8-bit home computers onwards making a custom keyboard often meant taking a surplus one from elsewhere and adapting its matrix to suit whatever controller interface was at hand. [Julian Calaby]’s USB conversion of an Apple Extended keyboard may be unusual in this day and age and was probably a late example even 15 years ago when he made it, but it remains a glorious piece of bodge-wire hardware hacking at its finest.

The task at hand with this type of conversion is to cut the matrix PCB tracks and replace them with soldered wires to create the new matrix required. This can then be wired to the controller, which in [Julian]’s case came from a cheap USB keyboard. He added a small USB hub to allow for a pair of USB sockets where Apple had put an ADB socket, making for quite a decent older keyboard with an unexpected USB interface.

Now older and wiser, he has plans to revisit his old keyboard with a modern microcontroller board, and needs to revisit the matrix again and give the peripheral new life. We still like the original though, as it captures a moment in time when keyboard matrix hacking made sense, and reminds us of our own youthful hardware follies.

Paging through Hackaday past it’s a testament to the old-school nature of this board that all we can find are microcontroller-based conversions. That’s not to say that cutting up old ‘boards is out of the question though.

Wireless Mouse Gets A Charging House

November 23, 2020 by Kristina Panos 10 Comments

Mouse batteries always seem to die at the worst possible moment, like when you’re in the middle of pwning noobs or giving a presentation at work. [AyhamAS] was tired of having to look around for a replacement battery and decided to build a nice little charging dock for their mouse.

At the heart of this build is a TC4056A charging board inside the dock. Since this board is designed to charge 3.7 V batteries, [AyhamAS] removed the charge current-limiting resistor and replaced it with a pair of through-hole resistors. A switch on the back of the dock lets [AyhamAS] choose between the two values for fast or slow charging.

On the mouse side, [AyhamAS] cleverly used the receiver storage cubbyhole to house the contacts. Magnets in in the mouse and the dock and spring-loaded contacts add even more tactile feedback to the whole experience. The dock itself looks great, too — it’s made from acrylic that’s been sanded down to a matte finish. Check out the build video after the break.

If your mouse has a battery pack, you could always upgrade to a bigger one as long as there’s room.

Continue reading “Wireless Mouse Gets A Charging House” →

Micro Macro Keyboard Is ‘Mega-Based

November 19, 2020 by Kristina Panos 3 Comments

There’s a certain kind of joy that comes in throwing something together from spare parts, or from finding utility in a proof of concept for another project. [Clewsy] is cooking up something clacky and built this baby keeb to prove some stuff out, such as reading a key matrix. Now it’s become a music/media controller that looks great next to a giant matching volume knob.

Beneath the gently backlit Gateron blues is a custom ATMega32u4-based board, which is viewable through the clear acrylic bottom plate. That’s a nice touch. We’re not sure if the wood came from a picture frame, but if not, they seem like a great candidates for enclosure material.

This keeb looks fantastic, and we are partial to both the clear and the chrome keycaps. We can only hope [Clewsy] sends the details of the next build our way.

If you want to get started building keyboards, you can’t go wrong with a macro keyboard like this one. If you have way more than four macros in mind, build something bigger, like a custom game pad with a joystick.

Zoom Control Box Helps Keep Meetings On Track

November 13, 2020 by Lewin Day 19 Comments

For many people, the biggest change of 2020 has been adjusting to a glut of online teleconferences as a part of daily working life. [p_leriche] has had to adjust the way church services are conducted, and found managing a complicated streaming meeting setup to be complicated at best. To ease the workload on the presenter, he created a simple Zoom control box.

At its heart, the box is little more than a fancy keyboard. An Arduino Pro Micro is hooked up to a series of brightly colored pushbuttons, each labelled with regularly used Zoom functions. The Pro Micro is programmed to fire off the corresponding keyboard shortcuts when the buttons are pressed, activating the relevant function.

It might be a simple build, but it greatly reduces the hand gymnastics required mid-presentation, and we’re sure the users greatly appreciate the new hardware. While this is a quick-and-dirty build thrown together in a basic enclosure, macro keyboards can be both useful and attractive if you so desire. If you’ve built your own time-saving control console, be sure to let us know!

Bringing An IBM Model F Into 2020

November 12, 2020 by Jenny List 41 Comments

We know that the Hackaday family includes many enthusiasts for quality keyboards, and thus mention of the fabled ‘boards of yore such as the IBM Model F is sure to set a few pulses racing. Few of us are as lucky as [Brennon], who received the familial IBM PC-XT complete with its sought-after keyboard.

This Model F has a manufacture date in March 1983, and as a testament to its sturdy design was still in one piece with working electronics. It was however in an extremely grimy condition that necessitated a teardown and deep clean. Thus we are lucky enough to get a peek inside, and see just how much heavy engineering went into the construction of an IBM keyboard before the days of the feather-light membrane devices that so many of us use today. There follows a tale of deep cleaning, with a Dremel and brush, and then a liberal application of Goo Gone. The keycaps had a long bath in soapy water to remove the grime, and we’re advised to more thoroughly dry them should we ever try this as some remaining water deep inside them caused corrosion on some of the springs.

The PC-XT interface is now so ancient as to have very little readily available in the way of adapters, so at first a PS/2 adapter was used along with a USB to PS/2 converter. Finally though a dedicated PC-XT to USB converter was procured, allowing easy typing on a modern computer.

This isn’t our first look at the Model F, but if you can’t afford a mechanical keyboard don’t worry. Simply download a piece of software that emulates the sound of one.