When I took a break from the hobby a few years ago I sold my ADB-to-USB adapter along with one of my AEK IIs and now I’m really regretting it. They seem even harder to come by today than they were in 2022, at least for less than checks eBay $80 a piece.
Anyway, just curious if anyone has advice on how to go about (re-)aquiring one, maybe some option I haven’t thought of.
DIY might be your friend here. Hasu has a TMK firmware for an ADB converter, and as I recall, the connector itself is identical to S-Video.
You know what, I think I’ll go this route.
I’m starting from zero as far as DIY goes (I even bought my ergos secondhand so that the soldering was already done), but I think I’d enjoy getting some simple tools and starting to learn. This looks like a good place to start : )
Welcome to the “F-it. I’ll do it myself.” rabbit hole. It’s empowering knowing that you can pretty much make whatever you want. Time consuming, but empowering.
Hope this helps! It looks like this converter supports QMK. https://www.tinkerboy.xyz/product/tinkerboy-adb-to-usb-keyboard-mouse-converter/
Yeah, thanks, that will probably be what I fall back on if I can’t figure out the DIY option. I wanted to try to avoid those shipping rates from the Philippines first!
It works!
Not the prettiest dongle I’ve ever seen, but maybe I can find a small project box for it or something.
Thanks @wjrii for pointing me in the right direction.
Nice work! This is the excuse to get a 3d printer and spiral completely down the rabbit hole!
Ha, you know, I was reflecting on your earlier comment this morning (about being to make whatever you want), and it made me want to ask you: what are some of your coolest DIY projects? Other than ergo keyboards ; )
Haha, I’ll keep it brief…
I’m a dev so spend a lot of time at my computer. As a result, I setup my machine to run an Arch setup from scratch that uses Hyprland and was configured to my liking. Not endless ricing, but just making it comfortable for how I want my computer to work.
I avoid VS Code because I find it annoys me with some of its baked in decisions. So… I setup Neovim from scratch a few years ago and have periodically swapped plugins if I find compelling reason to. But this was just another case of catering my setup to how my brain works and something I use for hours everyday.
Zooming out a bit, I have a home lab setup where I self-host a bunch of things including home assistant, which I stumbled into because I didn’t want to give up my data, but still wanted home automation.
The weirdest DIY part of my home automation is the result of one of my three dogs being a MASSIVE barker. So, I soldered up a little thumbnail size microphone to an esp development board that will trigger an automation to close our blinds when a certain noise threshold is reached. That then stops the barking because the stimulus to bark at something outside is now removed.
There are numerous little things like this around my house and workflow, but I already feel like I’m rambling a bit.
Dev who runs Arch Linux, is privacy conscious, has a home server, into ergo keyboards… you’re beginning to sound a lot like a friend of mine, but for the sake of anonimity I’m not going to ask you if you’re him!
Very cool, regardless.
Ok, I stuck it in a project box. Now it looks… almost disappointingly low-profile and unremarkable!
More seriously, it’s even smaller than a few of the commercial solutions, which is sick. And unlike commercial solutions, you can easily customize the firmware to adapt the layout, which is pretty handy given that the M0116 is a little strange by modern standards. I’ve adjusted the placement of arrows and mods to be more intuitive, as well as added a function layer. Hasu and TMK are awesome.
The keyboard could actually work as a daily driver now!
