Nascom 2 keyboard connector

[Tony Duell]

> 
> On Thu, 2005-06-02 at 23:36 +0100, Tony Duell wrote:
> > > 
> > > 
> > > Does anyone have the pinouts of the Nascom 2 keyboard connector handy? 
> > 
> > Yes. I have the Nascom 2 manual in front of me. From waht I can see, the 
> > keybaord came as an assembled unit, and there's no schematic in the 
> > manual for that. But the pinouts of the connector are there, here you are
> 
> ta... nice to confirm it's not in the manual anyway. I think I'll trace
> out the keyboard schematic and see what the reset line does. If it's not

My Nascom is almost impossible to get to at the moment, can you remind me 
as to what chips are on the keyboard? I am going to guess at at least one 
TTL decoder chip, and maybe not a lot else.

I did find my schematic for the Gemini keyboard last night (this is a 
much larger system using the same NASbus pinout, etc). It is, alas, 
very different, the Gemini keyboard has a microcontroller in it, and 
seems to send ASCII to the rest of the machine.


> needed by the keyboard itself, I'll move it to the CPU chassis and use
> DA15's for the keyboard.
> 
> If it is needed, I'll have to go the DB25 route. I did wonder about DA26
> connectors, but I'm not sure if those were about when the Nascom 2 was
> current (I'm trying to use period bits for everything). Plus I don't

Strange comment, based on your attitude to the 5155 :-)

> think I have any in the junk box anyway...
> 
> Cutting out the right shaped holes in aluminium for these connectors is
> a right pain in the butt, so I don't want to have to do it more than
> once ;)

RS do some very expensive hole punches for the D-series connectors. 
They're a bit like the good old Q-max cutters (now that is showing my age 
[1]). If the aluminium is not too thick, they do a lovely job, though. I 
do have the DB-size one in my toolkit, but none of the others. 

If you are desparate (and if we can find a way to meet up...) I could 
punch a DB-size hole for you.

[1] The first 3 I ever bought, over 25 years ago, were 5/8", 3/4" and 
1+1/8". Why?

-tony