3 replies to this topic

[herr professor]

I hate all available keyboard controllers.

There i've said it.

I want to make my own controller, perferable with that heavy duty old school keypad controllers, but i have little expereince in electronic projects. I understand that keypads work in a scan matrix deak, where a button will be scanned as grounded and show up in software as a key depress...

any ideas of how to do this eith standard switches? how can I determine which kind to use?

P

[Ian Primus]

The switches in an Atari keyboard controller are just normally open contacts. I drew up a quick ASCII schematic from memory, I _think_ it's right.

         --------------Pin 5 

         |    ---------Pin 9

         |    |    ----Pin 6

         |    |    |

         |    |    |

Pin 1 -- 1 -- 2 -- 3

         |    |    |

Pin 2 -- 4 -- 5 -- 6

         |    |    |

Pin 3 -- 7 -- 8 -- 9

         |    |    |

Pin 4 -- * -- 0 -- #



Pin 5 -///-------

        4.7k       |---- Pin 7

Pin 9 -///-------

        4.7k



Pin 8 - No Connection

Ian Primus
ian_primus@yahoo.com

[herr professor]

so you are just shorting connections from one pin to the other?

hmm sounds promising...

[Ian Primus]

Quote

so you are just shorting connections from one pin to the other?

Yeah, pretty much, Atari controllers are nothing more than a box full of switches.

Ian Primus
ian_primus@yahoo.com