APPLEBOX Datanetics keyboardpage

APPLEBOX - the Apple-1 pages

the Datanetics keyboard
or alternatives

When the Apple-1 has been sold, the user had to purchase the additional required hardware from third party companies. As additional hardware it
was neccessary to by a cassette recorder for storage, a tv-set as monitor, and a keyboard. The recommended keyboard was from Datanetics.

Mike Willegal has made a new film from the former datanetics keyboard and sells the bare PCB of the keyboard. But the most difficult problem isn´t
the PCB but rather more the keyswitches - because mechanical keyswitches are not manufactured any more for over 25 years. And upmost it´s nearly
impossible to get the required keyboard encoder MM5740/AAE. So the user today has ro search for alternate kind of keyboard if he wants to supply his
Apple-1 replica with a fitting "old-fashioned" type of keyboard.

The replication of the Datanetics keyboard looks like this:

   One of the other solutions to solve the problem, that became common in the last years - is to adapt a ancient Apple II keyboard from a computer unit
   that can´t be resurected because of damage in the layer of the mainboard itself. In such a case it´s required to make an adapter between both keyboards
   because the later keyboards had more keys and therefor transmitted more bits to the computer. The former old keyboard only transmitted 5 bits and the
   later ones transmitted 7 or 8 bit codes.

Another alternativ is to build up a very simple ASCII keyboard as published in the magazine Popular Electronic´s April 1974:










	the finished keyboard made according to the description above should then look like this:

    Another solution would be to aquire a keyboard from a teletype machine ( telex machine ).

   If none of this posibilities is availiable, then probably the PS2-keyboard adapter from Mike Willegal will be the very last option
   to get a working keyboard operating at the Apple-1.

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