This repository contains information on how the IBM 6770 and 6780 keyboards work, plus how to convert them to work with USB. These keyboards are amazingly cool proto-model-Ms dating from 1985, and have a 480x32 LCD screen on each one.
There's also some Arduino firmware for the keyboard controller and a very simple client which will draw an image on the LCD.
The firmware directory contains an Arduino sketch suitable for programming a
generic Blue Pill STM32F103 based microcontroller. This provides a HID Keyboard
and HID LCD interface which will talk to the keyboard microcontroller itself.
To use, you'll want to wire things up as following:
| Keyboard pin | Blue Pill pin | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | -5V bias voltage for the LCD | |
| 2 | 5V | +5V power supply |
| 3 | (unknown) | |
| 4 | not connected | |
| 5 | GND | 0V |
| 6 | not connected | |
| 7 | PA9, PA10 | data |
| 8 | PB3 | reset |
Note that the data line needs to be connected to both PA9 and PA10. Also, if you want to use the LCD, you'll need to source a -5V supply from somewhere. I used a cheap Banggood negative voltage generator module. Almost no current is required.
Important: you will need Roger Clark Melbourne's STM32 Arduino core and you will also need to patch it with the up-to-date version of the USBComposite library.
Once programmed and hooked up, plug in the Blue Pill. There'll be a short pause as the keyboard is initialised and it'll make a short beep. If you have the LCD working, you'll see it go black and then clear. It's now ready to use, presenting itself as a keyboard.
To use the client, just run make in the client directory. Then do kbdtool <image>. The image must be a 1bpp image which is 480x32.
(The client should work on anything which conforms to the HID Auxiliary Display bitmap protocol, but I haven't even heard of any other software or hardware which uses this, so I've no idea if I've gotten the protocol right.)
I have one. And it's the nicest keyboard I've ever used.
Everything except the binaries directory was designed, built and written by
me, David Given. You may contact me at dg@cowlark.com, or visit my website at
http://www.cowlark.com. There may or may not be anything interesting there.
Everything here except the binaries directory is © 2023 David Given and is
licensed under the MIT open source license. Please see LICENSE for
the full text. The tl;dr is: you can do what you like with it provided you
don't claim you wrote it.