[NBLUG/talk] IBM Terminal keyboard in Linux?

[Justin Thiessen]

Heya,

I'd be very interested to hear if you have any luck, since I have a similar
keyboard that I'd like to use.  You can read my limited experiences with it
below, but my main advice is just to rig up a cable and give it a shot.
Hopefully you can buy everything you need to solder/crimp one at HSC.  I
thought maybe that I could just bring you one of my later-style IBM model M
keyboard cables to try (which has an RJ-45 style connector on the keyboard
end), but the connector is apparently 6-pin, rather than 8.

On Sat, Aug 30, 2003 at 11:25:36PM -0700, Kyle Rankin wrote:
> I came across a kinda cool keyboard this weekend, and I'm wondering what
> kind of Linux support (well really PS/2 motherboard support) I might be
> able to expect, or at least maybe some tips.
> 
> The keyboard is an IBM 1394100 122 key terminal keyboard and looks
> identical to this:
> 
> http://store.yahoo.com/pckeyboards/122keyterkey.html

I have something which looks very similar, except it lacks the LEDs, and uses
an internal connector instead.  According to the sticker on the back it's a
"Part No 1386887" and a "Model M" (AFAIK, the "Model M" bit encompasses a
whole set of IBM keyboards, since I have at least 2 other different ones
which are labelled "Model M" - Gotta love that mechanical key-spring action)
Unfortunately, the date on the back of mine reads "1984", and it may not
even totally be AT-compatible.

I tried doing a bunch of searches to at least find out info like a pinout
for the keyboard, but to no avail.  

The internal connector on mine is a set of bare pins + a ground on the circuit
board.  The pins look like:


  *   *
  * * *