if there is a converter that allows me to use a usb keyboard with an IBM terminal

Ingre1959

14 May 2025, 09:53

I want to know if there is a converter that allows me to use a usb keyboard with an IBM terminal that usually takes a set 3 keyboard. I was wondering if a soarers converter connected in reverse would work, but I am not sure that the translation is bidirectional.

Coeus

15 May 2025, 01:22

I don't think it is that simple as turning a converter around. I am not sure I remembering the names of the roles correctly, but USB has hosts and devices. Typically the host would be a PC/phone/game console etc. and be in control of the USB bus, while devices sit on the bus and respond to to the host. If the devices originate data, as a keyboard does, they have to feed this to the host when polled.

So a USB keyboard expects to be a device and so does a soarers converter. If you connect those two together, there is no host on the bus and it won't work. Meanwhile, the other end of a soarers converter expects to receive serial messages from the actual keyboard, not send them as would be required when connecting to the IBM terminal.

Doing what you want is almost certainly possible using a small microcontroller but the software running on that microcontroller will need to support this specific configuration. Again, from memory, Soarer disappeared not leaving any source code available for his converter so other projects were started to provide similar protocol conversion between keyboard protocols. It may be worth looking up some of those and see if they support the configuration you want. I think QMK and TMK may be names of two of these projects.

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