Weird issue with PS/2 Keyboard and Big box amiga

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Don't Panic. Please wash hands.

    I have a Northgate Omnikey (actually 2) that doesn't seem to work when configured for the Amiga. No worries, I'll set it to PS/2 mode and use the Lyra 3! or so I thought. It does not work on boot and seems dead. The keyboard works in PS/2 mode on PCs no issue. If I boot the A2000 with any other PS/2 Keyboard attached to the Lyra, then hot swap them after boot it works.


    Any ideas where this issue could be? I am thinking the Lyra is not seeing this as a PS/2 keyboard on startup.


    Thanks!

    Quote from dragos

    I am thinking the Lyra is not seeing this as a PS/2 keyboard on startup.

    Lyra 3 does a lot of things to be compatible with as many broken PS2 implementations as possible, including KVM switches that have their very own idea of the PS2 protocol. This is really interesting, as there haven't been any reports of incompatible keyboards or KVM switches for over nine years.


    The Northgate Omnikey is a classic unit, covering a range of target computers, but the manual does exclude the PS/2 model 25. I actually don't know what that would mean, and as you might have guessed, I don't own one of these keyboards. However, the PDF manual I've found indicates that there's a DIP switch setting (under the logo plate) that you cold try: DIP#4 is for "Novell ELS or non-dedicated servers". I'd expect these to use just the same as AT/PS2 keyboards, but it may just have a different startup behaviour, closer to what Lyra 3 expects.


    I'd love to try/measure one of these keyboards, but they aren't even traded in Europe. Prices on eBay USA are a bit steep, and with shipping and import duties on top, I'd easily spend 200,- EUR on a keyboard. Please understand that I'm not keen on doing that.


    Jens

    Hi Jens, Thank you for the reply. I understand that you cannot have every keyboard to test, just wondering if you had any ideas. I did try the Novell setting to no avail. I now have two of these and my intended use was Amiga :( At this point, if you thought you could solve the issue, I'd send you one. There is a Northgate repair guy here in the states, but he has been less than helpful...

    If it works after hot-plugging, it must be something in the init sequence - it may not send the "BAT" message ("Basic Assurance Test") during startup, or it doesn't like Lyra setting a specific map, repeat rate and "stream mode" - this is all done during startup, but never called again during normal operation.


    I am very confident that I could fix this issue - if all else fails, I'll have to introduce a new setting for an alternative startup sequence. The MCU in Lyra3 has 4k flash, and there's 62 free bytes. That should be enough for an alternative code path during startup :-)


    But beware: If you should really decide to send such a keyboard my way, I may end up liking it so much that I won't send it back. You better think about a price tag that you'd put on that unit :-)


    If you do the hot-plug trick, do the LEDs work as expected? Just to see if the communication from adapter to keyboard also works as expected.


    Jens

    Update: I bought one of those old mouse/keyboard emulators for servers that have a passthrough for the K/M and it will work fine with that. I am very interested in sending one of these to you to make work with the Lyra (if you can figure out why it doesn't work in Amiga mode (according to the manuals it should) that would be an even bigger help! Let me know if you are interested. Thanks!

    I am interested, but I fear that this will cost more in shipping and customs hassle than the price of a Lyra-3. If you're willing to spend this money, I'm all for it, but can't promise any date that I can turn to this project.


    Jens

    Well, over the weekend we had a local show and that gave me the opportunity to test this issue on multiple other Amigas and another Omnikey keyboard. I can't see what I have to lose sending you one of these now as I got them to use on Amiga. If you want to PM me the address I will ship one to you and wait patiently for your testing :)