LLM Experiments -- HIDman Adapting USB devices to work on old computers

HIDman Adapting USB devices to work on old computers

> Simply open a text editor on your target PC (eg notepad, edit, vi), then hold HIDman's power button for a few seconds. The menu will be typed out into your text editor.
That's very cool and clever.
-- landgenoot Reply

That's mindblowing to me.
Reclaiming the serial terminal in a USB way.
-- actionfromafar Reply

It could have modes for Notepad, vim, and plain vt100 compatible :-)
It alao makes for a really cool out of band communication path. Pondering what this coupled with WiFi could do.
-- actionfromafar Reply

You know this will end up in some power plant or military facility to get another 30 years out of something that works and no one wants to deal with. Very cool project.
-- godzillabrennus Reply

USB to PS2/serial adapters and converters have existed for decades though.
-- ranger_danger Reply

Those typically aren’t what they seem. They are dumb socket wiring adapters and the peripheral itself needs to support both usb and ps2 for it work. Those peripherals are really rare now (they were around for the usb changeover).
-- AnotherGoodName Reply

While there are passive adapters for late model PS2 keyboards, there are also cheap active adapters utilising the CEC CSC0101A.
https://www.micros.com.pl/mediaserver/info-uicsc0101a-s16.pd...
But they are not as compatible as the open source one being developed.
Edit: I got it the wrong way around, see wolrah below.
-- teruakohatu Reply

> there are also cheap active adapters utilising the CEC CSC0101A
"The CEC CSC0101A is an integral micro-controller for converting PS/2 interface signal to USB applications"
That's the other way around, for which adapters have been widely available since the dawn of USB.
Adapters like the subject of this thread allowing modern USB HIDs to be connected to older computers are much harder to find. I remember at one point seeing one advertised in a CDW catalog, but just that statement alone should date it.
-- wolrah Reply

There are active adapters around: https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Active_USB_to_PS2_Ad...
But they aren't cheap. I hope open-source projects like this one will result in them being cheaply available on AliExpress and the like.
-- userbinator Reply

> Hub support can be hit-and-miss. This is (mostly) not HIDman's fault - many modern hubs don't support low-speed USB devices properly.
Just... how? USB hubs have been around for > 2 decades, the IP cores for USB 1 used in hub chips should have stabilized long ago...
-- mschuster91 Reply

Pretty much every single USB device ever created fails some part or another of the USB spec. Because the spec is enormous, truly giant, and ambiguous in parts.
-- shakna Reply

I guess using a hub for a keyboard is a little more niche.
-- actionfromafar Reply

Heh funny I have a laptop connected to the USB hub in a relatively recent Fujitsu screen and then an old USB 2.0 hub connected to that one with keyboard and mouse connected to it. Works flawlessly. Guess I got lucky.
-- iforgotpassword Reply

There’s a list of projects at the end of this article:
https://paperstack.com/adb_usb_converter/
The ADB-USB Wombat is a pretty decent solution if you prefer to buy something already made.
-- peterburkimsher Reply