[Coco] Mechanical keyboard upgrades for the CoCo

[Bill Pierce]

Yes, there are 4 unused spots on the COCO 1 & 2 keyboards. The Coco 3 filled thosed spots with Cntrl, Alt, F1 & F2.
The Coco 3 does not actually use those keys in RSDOS, but OS9 L2 is unusable without them.
I think there were "alternate" DOSs for Disk Basic that would use the keys, but they were never "officially" supported by Tandy. The Coco 3 was designed with OS9 L2 in mind and hence the extra keys.

A Coco 3 keyboard will work in a Coco 1 or 2 with NO problems, though the Coco 1 needs an adapter as it has a different connector (easy fix).

 

 


Bill Pierce
"Charlie stole the handle, and the train it won't stop going, no way to slow down!" - Ian Anderson - Jethro Tull

 

My Music from the Tandy/Radio Shack Color Computer 2 & 3
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-----Original Message-----
From: Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net>
To: CoCoList Computer Enthusiasts <coco at maltedmedia.com>
Sent: Wed, Aug 26, 2015 8:19 pm
Subject: Re: [Coco] Mechanical keyboard upgrades for the CoCo



> On Aug 26, 2015, at 17:14 , Mark J. Blair <nf6x at nf6x.net> wrote:
> 
> 
>> On
Aug 26, 2015, at 16:53 , camillus <camillus.b.58 at gmail.com> wrote:
>> 
>> HI,

>> 
>> I like the coco3 style too but why not adding the 3 open matrix spaces
with CTRL, F3,F4 keys?
>> 
>> They would do nothing when ROM routines are used,
unless patching the rom. I can think of good use for those keys, with software
patch or rom patch.
> 
> 
> I'm confused. I thought that the CoCo3 layout
already filled the whole scan matrix? If there are more empty spots in the
matrix, then yes, might as well fill them. Off to dig up CoCo 3
schematics...

Ok, I remembered correctly. There are 56 matrix points (7 x 8),
and the CoCo 3 keyboard fills the full
matrix:

https://www.dropbox.com/s/3nruzyg33vwpny4/CoCo3KeyboardMatrix.png?dl=0

Both
of the proposed keyboard layouts I shared fill the whole matrix with 57 keys;
the two shift keys are connected in parallel, and can't be distinguished from
each other.


-- 
Mark J. Blair, NF6X <nf6x at nf6x.net>
http://www.nf6x.net/


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