[Coco] Keyboard Q.....

[Boisy Pitre]

On Oct 20, 2006, at 7:19 PM, Phill Harvey-Smith wrote:

> Hi,
>
> I have finally managed to source myself a CoCo3, and have a couple  
> of questions.... Actually to be fair it's just the mainboard, but  
> following the instructions found on the web, I have adapted it to  
> run of a 12V supply, and it powers up to the basic  
> screen...however, I don't have a case or working keyboard for it.
>
> 1) Should a CoCo 2 keyboard work in this machine (except of course  
> for the extra keys the 3 has). As I have tried a CoCo 2 keyboard in  
> the 3 and also got some dead keys, this keyboard works fine in the  
> 2, this of course could indicate that my 3 has a dodgy keyboard  
> connector.

Yes, Phill, a  CoCo 2 keyboard will work, albeit without the CTRL/ALT/ 
F1/F2.

>
> 2) I have a proper CoCo3 keyboard, however it seems to have some  
> rows not working, I have disassembled it and given it a clean, but  
> internally it's a plastic sheet with metal traces on, these seem to  
> be broken in places, would a conductive pen be likley to be able to  
> fix these ?
>
> I have tried this keyboard in a CoCo2, and it exhibits the same  
> dead keys.
>
> If I can't get the keyboard working I have a partially developed PC  
> to Dragon/CoCo keyboard adapter that I could modify for the 3 with  
> little trouble, Alternatly I have a couple of spare Dragon  
> keyboards that I could make an adapter lead for.

A conductive pen carefully applied to the traces on the mylar should  
fix them up.  I've done this to several of my keyboards and it works  
fine.

> 3) Does anyone have the Schematic for a PAL CoCo3, as this is an  
> NTSC board, I am lead to believe that the Gime is the same for both  
> boards so it should be possible to convert this for PAL (as I am  
> using composite video out, this should work ok).

The CoCo 3 service manual has both PAL and NTSC versions.  I believe  
the service manual is available on the file server for this list??

> 4) Is there anyone out there with a spare CoCo3 case they'd be  
> willing to part with, or should I just re-pack it in something else ?

Can't help here.

> On a related project I'm working on a design for a Paged Multi rom  
> program pac, so that you can burn a bunch of pacs to a large flash  
> or eprom, and select them from a boot menu. Currently I have them  
> decoded off SCS/P2, at FF50 and FF52, is there anything that this  
> will interfere with, it seems to work ok on both the Dragon and  
> CoCo 1,2,3, but I wanted to check that there's nothing "well known"  
> that this will clash with. Though to be fair generally you would  
> only be using such a device as the only cart, so should not be a  
> problem.
>
> Oh..and incase people wondered I will get back to the Simm  
> interface real soon, just got several projects on the go.
>
> Cheers.
>
> Phill.
>
> -- 
> Phill Harvey-Smith, Programmer, Hardware hacker, and general  
> eccentric !
>
> "You can twist perceptions, but reality won't budge" -- Rush.
>
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