[Coco] Keyboard Q.....

[Phill Harvey-Smith]

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.

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.

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).

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 ?

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.