HTPC #3

[gcb]

warning, long and uninteresting project.

will be dumping progress here. I usually work extremely slowly, and will tackle items from the list in random order... I'm very open to comments and opinion! if you see me being dumb, speak up, please

To-Do:
A) holes in case to fit mother board
B) fit power supply
C) rewire front panel to keyboard
D) hack USB ports in front
E) IR remote
F) Front end software (player)
G) Backend sotftware (database/download)
H) TV antena and tuner
I) Amp

[gcb]

will start with Part C:

got the cheapest keyboard i could get with PS/2 connector (why waste one USB port?) and will do something similar to the keyboard hack



pick up one of the 2 contact sheet and number the 'buttons' according to which pin it's connected to


pick up the other sheet, and add A-H to the 'buttons' accoring to the rest of the pins.


now put them on top of the keyboard and you have a nice reference guide of which pin combination is what

F3 = B+3
2 = H + 2

now after you write down the table of what is what, you can trhow those sheets in the garbage. all we will use from that cheap junk is this little board:

also, notice how extra cheap that Rosewill brand is, not even a full membrane. It scares me that this junk brand is the most sold PSU at newegg... and they also sell silverware! Also bonus points for wasting epoxy to hide your PS/2 keyboard trade secret.

Now I will have to solder those buttons to that board somehow... will probably do all the rat-nest wiring for the matrix on the buttons and after that is done will solder, or even hold the wires in contact with pressure as it was originally.

[Willaim]

I think you should ditch the keyboard and go with a microcontroller with usb keyboard support like the teensy ++ 2.0 or even the teensy 2.0/3.0 and implement your own matrix setup be far less messy and more configurable

[gcb]

I think you should ditch the keyboard and go with a micro-controller with usb keyboard support like the teensy ++ 2.0 or even the teensy 2.0/3.0 and implement your own matrix setup be far less messy and more configurable

dammit! i didn't know the teensy had an easy HID mode.

Thought long and hard about that... but i had a really bad time coding for those embedded things overall. I did started to try to make my arduino and launchpad work as a HID, and it was painful. involved some non standard modes for the chips that made programming/debugging even harder. if i knew about the teensy before... well, it would still be one more failure point that i'm not familiar with... with the keyboard i'm 100% sure that if i'm not getting a key, it's my matrix. with anything else, i'd have some dozen points to check (IC code? matrix wires? usb interface? linux udev? power supply? etc)

when i get to the point of adding the IR remote, i may consolidate all in one solution. The teensy tip will be very helpful then. thanks!