strange IBM keyboard, maybe LK250 copy?
Sho Nakagama
I have a strange keyboard which I can't identify. I'm asking here because
I just feel that the readers of this group have a better shot at this
than any other.
Recently I got to raid the basement of a company and came across
several keyboards attached to various IBM XTs and ATs.
Of course no one at the company ever saw them before.
They have 24 keys marked "PF1" through "PF24" across the top
They have 10 keys to the left with lables like "Help" and "Finish"
There is a blank key in the middle of the arrow keys
Where the "alternate editing keys" would be in a 101 PC keyboard,
there are keys marked things like "Field" and "Mark"
There are keys above the number pad like "speed" "esc"
There is a "reset" button
It plugs in via a "Y" cable, one into the standard keyboard port,
the other into a full length card via a DB9.
The card has two DB9 females and two "RCA" jacks.
I plugged the whole assembly into an Acer 286 clone and it worked
as a normal keyboard. I plugged it into a 386DX40 and the thing
would not even boot up, but I didn't spend much time on it.
Any ideas? I'm hoping to get at least a name for this thing.
Oh yes, the part number is "6110344", Model "F"
I'm just wondering if this belongs in my home or the dumpster
and I've never seen an LK250 in real life, just what I've read
about them in various newsgroups.
Thanks-Sho
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cmos
s...@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) wrote:
>Thanks-Sho
Oveously this cmoputer was designed for a specific task.
It could of been used to controll some mechienary or maybe
a specific pice of software. Was there any other special
cards or conectors on the back of the computer?
But the card with the DB9 and the two RCA plugs dose
sound like an old CGA card, but I don't know why it
would be pluged into a keyboard.
The reson it probly worked in the 286 was that the key
board is probly just a modifid standard keyboard so it
worked as a keyboard and the card did nothing.
On the other computer it probly didn't boot up because
there was probly a conflict between the board and the
computer.
As for were it belongs, in the box of scrap boards, you
can probly rob some parts off of it for other things if
your into madeing things. Or send it to me and I'l tell
you more about it and put it in my scrape board box.
Maybe someone else has a better view of what
exactly it was used for.
Jim,
Cm...@pennet.net
Sho Nakagama
In article <5d84c2$1lo$1...@news3.microserve.net>, cmos wrote:
>s...@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) wrote:
>
>>I have a strange keyboard which I can't identify. I'm asking here because
>>I just feel that the readers of this group have a better shot at this
>>than any other.
>
>It could of been used to controll some mechienary or maybe
>a specific pice of software. Was there any other special
>cards or conectors on the back of the computer?
>But the card with the DB9 and the two RCA plugs dose
>sound like an old CGA card, but I don't know why it
>would be pluged into a keyboard.
Well our working theory from other parts of the net is that its a
keyboard for some sort of 3270 emulator. I don't know anything about
3270's myself. Looking at some 3270 material, the number of function
keys tally.
As for the card, our theory is that the two RCA's are for connection to
a IBM midsize (twinax? another thing I know nothing about cept what I
see in catalogs) and that the other 9 pin was for a mono monitor. I
suppose so you could have 3270 stuff in on screen and PCDOS 1.0 on the
other. Remember this is all guess work by people who never saw a
3270, just heard about them.
Of course, me wanting to be thorough, I'd like some confirmation from
someone in the know. Further, me being an idiot, would love to find
some documents or drivers to run this beast, even if just for a day.
Sho
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cmos
s...@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) wrote:
>Sho
Well, I don't know a whole lot about 3270, but all I ever seen with
it was BNC coax type connectores, sometimes twisted wire pair
if it has a balum. The 3270 is an old networking schem that
run about 1Mbit and it was mostly ASCII with some vector graphics.
Some one correct me if i'm wrong. The only host cards I'v seen for
3270 were for mainframe computers, so the only way I know of runing
a 3270 network is with a mainframe, but I am not sure of this.
But now that you mention two monitors and the special keyboard,
is it posible that there mite of been two keyboards also?
If this is the case then it could be a softwere debuger setup.
How this works to put it in simple terms is you run the computer
with the normial monitor and keyboard, and while you are runing
the softwere you are trying to debug with the regular computer
part. The other monitor and keyboard is used to view and change
the data in the memory and cpu.
This is just another posability to think about.
Jim,
Cm...@pennet.net
Richard S. Shuford
In message <5ddpnt$38d$1...@news3.microserve.net>, cm...@me.com (cmos) wrote:
|
|
| ...I don't know a whole lot about 3270, but all I ever seen with
| it was BNC coax type connectores, sometimes twisted wire pair
| if it has a balum. The 3270 is an old networking schem that
| run about 1Mbit and it was mostly ASCII with some vector graphics.
| Some one correct me if i'm wrong.
OK. Here is some correction.
A true 3270 terminal does NOT speak ASCII at all!
A 3270-type device speaks only EBCDIC, the Extended Binary-Coded- Decimal
Interchange Code, a proprietary invention of IBM, derived from the hole
patterns used by the old 029 cardpunch. (Remember 80-column cards?) It
also transmits data in block mode, not character-by- character. (And only
variants equipped with the "3270 Graphics Data Stream Extensions" could do
vector graphics. SAS still supports these graphics, by the way.)
(Also by the way, the term "balun" comes from "balanced-to-unbalanced".)
Yes, a 3270 does speak through a single-core coax cable to a 360/370-type
mainframe via an intermediary piece of equipment called the IBM 3274
Control Unit or another "terminal concentrator".
But so far you have NOT actually established that the keyboard is for a
3270 anyway. IBM also made a whole series of 52xx terminals, also
designed to speak EBCDIC, but only to the midrange System/3x computers,
which communicated over a two-core "twinax" cable. The keyboard might
belong to one of those.
Remembering that in message <slrn5fe4r...@tannis.sho.net>,
s...@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) wrote:
>
> Recently I got to raid the basement of a company and came across
> several keyboards attached to various IBM XTs and ATs.
> Of course no one at the company ever saw them before.
>
> They have 24 keys marked "PF1" through "PF24" across the top
> They have 10 keys to the left with lables like "Help" and "Finish"
> There is a blank key in the middle of the arrow keys
> Where the "alternate editing keys" would be in a 101 PC keyboard,
> there are keys marked things like "Field" and "Mark"
> There are keys above the number pad like "speed" "esc"
> There is a "reset" button
>
> It plugs in via a "Y" cable, one into the standard keyboard port,
> the other into a full length card via a DB9.
> The card has two DB9 females and two "RCA" jacks.
There's no way that this is a copy of an LK250. The LK250 is a DEC item,
with a design in some sense influenced by IBM, for use with a normal PC.
I don't know what the mystery keyboard is, either, but here are a couple
of guesses about two products the keyboard might fit:
- IBM made a mainframe-in-a-PC product, the PC/370, which was mostly
used as a development platform for MVS/CICS applications in COBOL.
- IBM also made a special 3270/PC (PC/XT with 3270 terminal-emulation
board built in) that bore a 19-inch gas-plasma display, which could
show simultaneously 4 mainframe logon sessions. This "3290
Information Panel" was shown in a picture in an article I wrote long
ago: "Two Flat-Display Technologies" by R. S. Shuford. BYTE, March
1985, Vol 10, number 3, pages 130-134+. (But I never unhooked its
keyboard.)
*****************************************************************************
Other keyboard and IBM information may be found in subpages from my
archive of video-terminal information:
http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html
*****************************************************************************
...Richard S. Shuford | "A gossip betrays a confidence;
...shu...@cs.utk.edu | so avoid a man who talks too much."
...Info-Stratus contact| Proverbs 20:19 NIV
Sho Nakagama
In article <Pine.SUN.3.91.97020...@duncan.cs.utk.edu>, Richard S. Shuford wrote:
>In message <5ddpnt$38d$1...@news3.microserve.net>, cm...@me.com (cmos) wrote:
(snip and more snips all over the place)
>
>
>
>Remembering that in message <slrn5fe4r...@tannis.sho.net>,
> s...@tannis.sho.net (Sho Nakagama) wrote:
>>
>> Recently I got to raid the basement of a company and came across
>> several keyboards attached to various IBM XTs and ATs.
>> Of course no one at the company ever saw them before.
I should also point out that they were decked out with the normal PC
and XT stuff (they were all IBM machines btw). This being a non-profit
place, they were probably also all donated sometime in the dim past,
probably the same firm that recently donated an C-128. ;)
>There's no way that this is a copy of an LK250. The LK250 is a DEC item,
>with a design in some sense influenced by IBM, for use with a normal PC.
I know, the LK250 stuff was very wishful thinking, I was praying because
MSKermit has support for it. *sigh*
>I don't know what the mystery keyboard is, either, but here are a couple
>of guesses about two products the keyboard might fit:
>
>
> - IBM made a mainframe-in-a-PC product, the PC/370, which was mostly
> used as a development platform for MVS/CICS applications in COBOL.
>
>
> - IBM also made a special 3270/PC (PC/XT with 3270 terminal-emulation
> board built in) that bore a 19-inch gas-plasma display, which could
> show simultaneously 4 mainframe logon sessions. This "3290
> Information Panel" was shown in a picture in an article I wrote long
> ago: "Two Flat-Display Technologies" by R. S. Shuford. BYTE, March
> 1985, Vol 10, number 3, pages 130-134+. (But I never unhooked its
> keyboard.)
>
Well if there were any flat panels around, they're in somebody elses
museum now ;)
> *****************************************************************************
>
> Other keyboard and IBM information may be found in subpages from my
> archive of video-terminal information:
>
> http://www.cs.utk.edu/~shuford/terminal_index.html
>
> *****************************************************************************
Very informative site...actually I even commented to someone it was rather
entertaining.
--
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
I've seen the world from a first class seat
I've read the Bitch and Ulysses
Gary Franco
Hi,
I will guess that what you have is keyboard for one of the original
3270PC's (pre-IRMA) used on the modified PC/AT . This was a modified PC
keyboard which possessed a 3270 keyboard layout. It sort of had a
pronounced "scooped" effect and resembled a "flying wing" if you will.
if you wish you might try logging on to IBMLINK and track down the part
number. http://www.ibmlink.ibm.com then follow directions.
Sho Nakagama
In article <32FBD3...@swbell.net>, Gary Franco wrote:
>Hi,
>I will guess that what you have is keyboard for one of the original
>3270PC's (pre-IRMA) used on the modified PC/AT . This was a modified PC
>keyboard which possessed a 3270 keyboard layout. It sort of had a
>pronounced "scooped" effect and resembled a "flying wing" if you will.
Well there is a huge bump to hold all those function keys and the
keyboard definitely has the shape and surface area to produce a lot
of lift, if it just didn't weigh 25 pounds, but it's a stealth keyboard by
any definition :)
>
>if you wish you might try logging on to IBMLINK and track down the part
>number. http://www.ibmlink.ibm.com then follow directions.
Tried...the part number (listed as PT*NO*6110344 on the keyboard before
someone says I've got the wrong number) doesn't turn up anything. I must
admit it's a strong possibility that I didn't know what I was doing, a lot
of these sites aren't very clear with Lynx and I don't run X at all.
Anyway, I forgot to mention that there is a block of 8 DIP switches on
the underside in the center as well. The date says 10AUG*85 if anyone
cares, just about a month before I headed off to college and the
wonderful world of uucp over 1200 baud modems.
Sho