> On Jul 8, 2025, at 10:01 AM, Thomas Morehouse <[email protected]> wrote: > > Being a card-carrying expert in absolutely nothing ... What about using a USB > keyboard,running into a USB to serial cable, to the RS232c port.
My first expected complication here would be that just because a USB keyboard somehow fits a USB to serial cable (it doesn't) that doesn't make it a USB host or make an HID device somehow send serial data. Overcoming that would probably be the first bit of design challenge: if I were tackling it from this angle, I'd have to put a device between them to act as host for both the HID device and the serial transceiver and to run your software to do this. And to provide power to the rig. > Then having some code in ROM/RAM to make the USB keyboard output mesh with > the M100/2 keyboard reading circuit? It's an assumption on my part but it shouldn't be too hard to stuff bytes from the serial port into the keyboard buffer, but RS-232 isn't going to just plug into a keyboard matrix without yet another custom device to light up the matrix itself. My bet here is that just fixing, rigging, or replacing the keyboard is an order of magnitude easier than two custom microcontrollers, two custom PCBs, two pieces of different custom software, and a lot of custom wiring. I'm not very bright, though, compared to some of the folks who have done some clever and amazing engineering work on this platform.
