Dear List! Recently I've found a nice old computer. It's called Convergent Technology. Some 80's machine without any decoration signs. The problem is I have only box with motherboard and processor and a keyboard - no display. The display was main link between keyboard and box. So, I can't run it. What I actually want to do, is to use its keyboard on my modern computer (Celeron 510 MHz with 256 MB memory running FC 7). The keyboard has some strange plug. It looks like network (LAN) plug, but board. Pictures of the keyboard and plug can be found at the address: http://kampela.ru/kuvat/index.php?offset=1 If I'll solder a PS or PS/2 plug to it is it possible to run this old beauty? I vainly googled for the information about old keyboards. And found only stuff of how to make a valet from it. Thanks for attention, Hiisi
Hiisi wrote:
Dear List! Recently I've found a nice old computer. It's called Convergent Technology. Some 80's machine without any decoration signs. The problem is I have only box with motherboard and processor and a keyboard - no display. The display was main link between keyboard and box. So, I can't run it. What I actually want to do, is to use its keyboard on my modern computer (Celeron 510 MHz with 256 MB memory running FC 7). The keyboard has some strange plug. It looks like network (LAN) plug, but board. Pictures of the keyboard and plug can be found at the address: http://kampela.ru/kuvat/index.php?offset=1 If I'll solder a PS or PS/2 plug to it is it possible to run this old beauty? I vainly googled for the information about old keyboards. And found only stuff of how to make a valet from it. Thanks for attention, Hiisi
I do not think it will work just by changing plugs. It is not going to have the correct scan codes. If it is what I think it is, the "monitor" was actually a terminal. The machine you have probably used a serial connection to the terminal, and the terminal send ASCII code to the computer. If you had the "CRT" part, you could probably hook it to a serial port and use it under Linux. (I have done that with a few "smart" terminals...)
The keyboard may generate modified ASCII code, or its own codes that the firmware in the terminal translated. A common method was serial communication with 7 bit ASCII code, and special functions if the 8th bit was set.
What you MAY be able to do is convert the keyboard so it will connect to a serial port. But it is probably going to be more trouble then it is worth.
Mikkel
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Hiisi wrote: <snip>
If I'll solder a PS or PS/2 plug to it is it possible to run this old beauty?
no. this keyboard is *not* compatible with anything of current type.
this type of connector, as well as i can tell from low res jpeg, is similar to what was used on some ibm systems. i may still have an ibm keyboard with a connector similar looking. will not know until i finish unpacking from a recent move.
as mentioned by another poster, what you have may well be an m68k *micro mini frame* that would serial connect to a keyboard and monitor to comprise a terminal, or a keyboard and monitor in a single enclosure as a terminal.
having grown up from mini's and s100 days, i still have a bunch of early systems, cromemco, plexus, tandy model 2 and model 10, and a couple other s100 systems.
except for tandy systems, these 'micro frames' were designed for multi user, multi tasking operation with users connected via rs232 type serial ports.
in broad definition, 'intelligent terminals' can be defined as having no floppy or hard drives. 'micro frames' can be defined as having a floppy and/or hard drives. if no floppy, there would usually be a tape drive for program loading and archiving.
if you can take some 'high res' full frame shots of internals of box, it may be possible to help you determine what you have.
I vainly googled for the information about old keyboards.
as a possibly better place to search, and if box is an m68k system, you may have better luck logging http://www.linux-m68k.org/ and join group.
- --
tc,hago.
g .
in a free world without fences, who needs gates.
learn linux: 'Rute User's Tutorial and Exposition' http://rute.2038bug.com/index.html.gz 'The Linux Documentation Project' http://www.tldp.org/ 'HowtoForge' http://howtoforge.com/
On Thu, Oct 23, 2008 at 01:21:15AM +0400, Hiisi wrote:
Dear List! Recently I've found a nice old computer. It's called Convergent Technology. Some 80's machine without any decoration signs. The problem is I have only box with motherboard and processor and a keyboard - no display. The display was main link between keyboard and box. So, I can't run it. What I actually want to do, is to use its keyboard on my modern computer (Celeron 510 MHz with 256 MB memory running FC 7). The keyboard has some strange plug. It looks like network (LAN) plug, but board. Pictures of the keyboard and plug can be found at the address: http://kampela.ru/kuvat/index.php?offset=1 If I'll solder a PS or PS/2 plug to it is it possible to run this old beauty? I vainly googled for the information about old keyboards. And found only stuff of how to make a valet from it. Thanks for attention, Hiisi
I know just enough about old Convergent Technology machines to know that I don't know very much.
Having said that, I'll step out on a limb here: They made a number of different kinds of computers. Back when I used to work at Prime Computer (remember them?) we used their "NGen" system as part of our office system.
It was a cute little thing made of a bunch of boxes that plugged into each other side-by-side, each with another component in it. You wanted another hard drive, you plugged it into the side. Modem? Plug it into the side. and so on.There was also an older system with a flat base and a CRT attached to one end of it and another similar-sized device on the other that contained the computer itself.
As I recall, the keyboard plugged into the system, somewhere, and it had other connectors on it for daisy-chaining other devices (but I don't recall that we ever used those other devices). I doubt that the monitor would be PC-compatible, though I don't know either way. And I doubt the keyboard was, either, since it probably originated in designs from pre-IBM PC.
The NGen models we used had a screamin' 10 Mhz 80186 chip, later models had 286 and 386 processors also.
They ran CT's own OS, as I recall named "CTOS". No graphics on the display, only character-cell display, but it was reprogrammable. Someone had written a game for it (named Rats) that made excelelnt use of the reprogrammable fonts in the display hardware to LOOK like you were moving around in a maze with various denizens you had to shoot before they ate you. My son still mentions that game as one of his favorites.
I'm also vaguely aware of other higher-end systems, perhaps some multi-processor server machines, or some such, but have no personal knowledge.
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Alan Cox -
Fred Smith -
g -
Hiisi -
Mikkel