bill@sugaree.uu.net (William Bishop) (05/07/91)
Hi everyone,
Did'ya ever wonder what it would be like to use an Atari that has a
detached keyboard...those of us with 520's probably wonder about it
all of the time. Well, wonder no more, hopefully...
My question is: Is the a kit or something that will enable me (and
others like me with 520's) to convert to a "box and seperate keyboard"
setup? If anyone has a name and address or just plain old do-it-yourself
instruction - please post them.
Thanks,
...Bill
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Telex: 846223 | miked@syscon (Mike DeMetz) (05/07/91)
bill@sugaree.uu.net (William Bishop) writes: >Hi everyone, >Did'ya ever wonder what it would be like to use an Atari that has a >detached keyboard...those of us with 520's probably wonder about it >all of the time. Well, wonder no more, hopefully... >My question is: Is the a kit or something that will enable me (and >others like me with 520's) to convert to a "box and seperate keyboard" >setup? If anyone has a name and address or just plain old do-it-yourself >instruction - please post them. I believe Tech Specialties in Texas had such a conversion.
orc@vpnet.chi.il.us (david parsons) (05/09/91)
In article <97.28257a4c@sugaree.uu.net> bill@sugaree.uu.net (William Bishop) writes: |Did'ya ever wonder what it would be like to use an Atari that has a |detached keyboard... . . . |My question is: Is the a kit or something that will enable me (and |others like me with 520's) to convert to a "box and seperate keyboard" "Or something" I've got a detached keyboard - A Mega keyboard, for that matter - attached to the 520 I'm using now. It's a trivially simple modification, if you're willing to do some wire fitting. What you need is a 6-wire telephone jack and a 17-pin single inline header plug (plus, of course, a Mega keyboard and a 520 - dunno about the newer ones, but the older (no internal flopsies) 520's are happy with this modification.) 4 simple steps, with appropriate cursing relative to success. 1: take apart the 520, remove the old keyboard, leap on it a few times, tear apart your warranty (leaping on the 520 keyboard provided incentive to do the modification properly, tearing apart the warranty just saves the people at Atari the effort...) 2: take the telephone jack (er, socket, or whatever - I bought a 6-pin wall plug and ripped it apart) and run the wires to the header plug as follows: blue, yellow -> pin 1 white, black -> pin 13 green -> pin 14 red -> pin 15 (my notes - I can't look at the actual connector for obvious reasons - say that the blue wire is #1, yellow #2, white #5, black #6, green #3 and red #4 on the telephone jack or socket or whatever) 3: plug the header plug back into the 520 at the same place you took out the old keyboard. (Pin one is towards the front of the unit, in case it's not labeled on the PC board.) feed the un-keyboarded end of the Mega keyboard cable through the RF shield where the 520 cable went in, then reassemble the whole mess. 4: plug in in and play. You'll have to relocate the mouse cable out to the Mega keyboard from the ST itself, but that's the only difference I've noticed. Total cost? 1 mega keyboard plus about $6 for the bits. And it's trivially simple, and it doesn't permanently modify _any_ of the offending bits except for the telephone jack and the the 17-pin header plug. I'm noted for my tendency to kill hardware by a glance, but I've managed to rip apart the ST, attach this mod, and put it all back together with no ill-effects so far. (But I guess I'll haveta point out that you're on your own if you do this; I'm not responsible in general, and it'd be inconsistant if I made an exception in this case.) Have fun... __ .david parsons \/
chuck@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu (charles bridgeland) (05/10/91)
ok, sounds interesting so, what's a mega keyboard cost and where can you get one? -- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- chuck bridgeland---anarchoRepublican "one thing about a police state, you can always find the police" l. neil smith chuck@mrcnext.cso.uiuc.edu hire me so I can quit this pit. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------