Convert an Atari 600/800/1200 XL into a USB keyboard.
I bricked my Atari mainboard. My goal is to use the keyboard of the Atari on a Raspberry PI in combination with an Atari emulator (e.g. Atari800).
- Atari XL keyboard
- Teensy 3.6 or compatible (that can identify itself as a HID device)
- USB cable for the Teensy
- A ribbon cable connector, see this forum discussion
- Breadboard and jumper wires
- Arduino IDE
- Teensyduino software addon for the Arduino software
- Microsoft Keyboard Layout Creator (for Windows only)
Requires the 24-pin ribbon connector pins to be connected to a Teensy 3.6 or compatible board.
Important Please verify that the pinout of your Atari keyboard ribbon is the same, I don't know if different variations of the pinout exist. My Ribbon doesn't have a wire for connector 19.
Find RIBBON_01 u/i RIBBON_24 in the source file to see to which Teensy pins I connected the Ribbon. Connect ribbon pin 18 to GND and pin 24 to +3.3V. I use the Teensy 3.3 output to power the keyboard, please note that most Teensy boards can handle up to 3.3V on the I/O pins.
I also added a 'deadman switch' to enable/disable keyboard functionality of the keyboard in case the keyboard sends funny keystrokes to your PC during development. Wire input PIN_ENABLE_KB to GND to enable the USB Keyboard functionality.
Key mappings are optimized for usage with the Atari800 emulator.
| Atari | USB |
|---|---|
| RESET | F5 |
| OPTION | F2 |
| SELECT | F3 |
| START | F4 |
| HELP | F6 |
| INVERSE VIDEO | Tilde(`) |
| CLEAR + modifier | Home |
| INSERT + modifier | Insert |
NOTE: Currently the cursor keys are directly mapped as arrow keys, which changes behaviour a bit in comparison to the Atari.