USB48G - Upcycle Broken Hp48 Keyboard

[mipa83]

Hi,

I would like to share my project: https://www.instructables.com/id/USB48G-...-Keyboard/

It is a guided upcycle project for a broken hp48. I attached the keyboard to an ATMEGA8 to make it work as a standard USB keyboard.

Please see project and let me know what you think.

Thanks,
Michael



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[rprosperi]

Very cool Michael, thanks for sharing this project.

Are kits going to be made available to buy for folks (like me) that are not skilled enough to make my own?

Excellent answer for the somewhat awkward use of a normal keyboard with emu48, etc. Really clever!

[Claudio L.]

(04-18-2019 01:08 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  Very cool Michael, thanks for sharing this project.

Are kits going to be made available to buy for folks (like me) that are not skilled enough to make my own?

Excellent answer for the somewhat awkward use of a normal keyboard with emu48, etc. Really clever!

Excellent work!
I've always wanted the feel of the 48 keyboard on another machine. Turning it into a USB keyboard makes it useful again!
It's a great tutorial and great info, thanks to you now other people can also connect the 48 keyboard as GPIO to any DIY board. Actually... Instead of putting an AVR in there, it would be nice (as the next evolution) to put something tiny like a Raspberry pi zero and an LCD display? You could emulate the 48 right there inside the original case (or any other calc for that matter). I think the 48 form factor has plenty of space inside to make an attempt.

Anyway, thanks for sharing this! Great project, keep them coming, we'd like to see more!

[Jlouis]

This is great, thanks to share with us!

If a kit is ever to be available, I'm interested in one.

Cheers

JL

[mipa83]

It is very great to hear from you and that you like this project. :-)

I am thinking about upgrading the project before making it available....
In my opinion is missing a wireless connection for the keyboard.
The next step will be to add Bluetooth to the keyboard.
I already found a breakout that should work for it: https://learn.adafruit.com/bluefruit-nrf...idadafruit

What do you think?

greetings
Michael

[rprosperi]

A BT module with HID seems perfect, as there's no need for drivers, etc. and should work with almost any BT stack, though I'd suggest to keep the USB interface option as well for folks that use desktop PCs.

[Claudio L.]

(04-23-2019 12:47 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  A BT module with HID seems perfect, as there's no need for drivers, etc. and should work with almost any BT stack, though I'd suggest to keep the USB interface option as well for folks that use desktop PCs.

Even on desktop PCs you can get a BT mini dongle for a few bucks, and using the calc wirelessly is way better than with the cable (I frequently move my calc from left to right of my keyboard, not having a cable would be ideal).
I think Bluetooth is the perfect choice for a 2.0 iteration of his project. Go ahead!!

[rprosperi]

(04-23-2019 02:05 PM)Claudio L. Wrote:  

(04-23-2019 12:47 PM)rprosperi Wrote:  A BT module with HID seems perfect, as there's no need for drivers, etc. and should work with almost any BT stack, though I'd suggest to keep the USB interface option as well for folks that use desktop PCs.

Even on desktop PCs you can get a BT mini dongle for a few bucks, and using the calc wirelessly is way better than with the cable (I frequently move my calc from left to right of my keyboard, not having a cable would be ideal).
I think Bluetooth is the perfect choice for a 2.0 iteration of his project. Go ahead!!

Don't misunderstand me, I fully agree with Claudio that wireless is the way to use this; my point was that since USB works already, if there is no cost or complexity penalty, why not keep it for folks that are OK with cords. But if it does cause issues, I agree the the BT answer is best.