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USB for a 1977 Keyboard

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USB for a 1977 Keyboard
FOSDEM 2021

The talk will be about how I bought a retro keyboard for a VISTA80 from the Canada Science and Technology museum and reversed engineered it to convert it passively to USB. The VISTA80 was a machine built in Canada and was used to "Create pages of text for cable TV systems or to create running lines of text or titles for television displays."¹ The VISTA80 was manufactured around 1995-1997 and was "One of the first character generators to use a computer chip (Intel 8080A) as a controller"¹.

1: https://ingeniumcanada.org/ingenium/collection-research/collection-item.php?id=1992.0451.009

  • The history of the Vista80
  • A look inside of the keyboard
  • The Original circuitry
  • Prototype
  • Mapping the matrix
  • Making the circuit board
  • Highlights and Lessons learned

I would potentially like to collaborate with the museum to get more information on the device.

Speakers: Jeremy Ouellet (Angel)