clh333
Veteran Member
In April of 2017 I posted concerning the acquisition of an IBM Displaywriter. I had gone to retrieve some 8-inch drives I had purchased on eBay and brought back an almost-complete system - but missing the keyboard. At the time I had no knowledge of what I had gotten myself into and asked for information.
In the subsequent discussion several members, including robertx, nigwil, Adventurer, Al Kossow and shattered, were kind enough to offer suggestions. I deferred doing anything until I understood better what were my options, as I only have one of these and have a knack for screwing things up. I thought in the meantime I would keep my eyes open for the keyboard.
I had been warned that the keyboards were prized; apparently they are. In the interim I have seen only one come up for sale, on eBay: It sold for over $1000. I will spare you my personal opinion of the situation - it's a (nominally) free country, after all - and merely note that I was unwilling to spend the money.
Recently I have invested time in learning more about 8-inch drives which was my original purpose for obtaining the IBM 8-inch drives. I understand now that the IBM drives, although DSDD and soft-sectored, use a different format from the rest of the IBM world when used with the Displaywriter. The disks that came with my purchase are only going to be useful to the Displaywriter.
Originally I had thought to have acquired about 10 disks of programs and data, looseleaf. I had been storing them carefully until the day I could read them. I just discovered I have 50 more in storage boxes, some of which are IBM issue. I don't know what's on any of them.
In short, I need to find a way to get a keyboard to talk to the Displaywriter. Thanks to the help of Chuck(G) and the rest of the VCFED members I have already built and deployed an XT/AT adapter to translate between my 5160 and Model M keyboard. I think, in principle, the same approach might be employed here. However, there are three potential pitfalls: mechanical interface, electrical interface and signal decoding.
My reason for posting here: If anyone has already accomplished this feat I would very much like to hear details of how you did so. In the mean time, I'm getting closer to being able to image the IBM disks. When I have done so I will put the images on Google Drive and post again.
-CH-
In the subsequent discussion several members, including robertx, nigwil, Adventurer, Al Kossow and shattered, were kind enough to offer suggestions. I deferred doing anything until I understood better what were my options, as I only have one of these and have a knack for screwing things up. I thought in the meantime I would keep my eyes open for the keyboard.
I had been warned that the keyboards were prized; apparently they are. In the interim I have seen only one come up for sale, on eBay: It sold for over $1000. I will spare you my personal opinion of the situation - it's a (nominally) free country, after all - and merely note that I was unwilling to spend the money.
Recently I have invested time in learning more about 8-inch drives which was my original purpose for obtaining the IBM 8-inch drives. I understand now that the IBM drives, although DSDD and soft-sectored, use a different format from the rest of the IBM world when used with the Displaywriter. The disks that came with my purchase are only going to be useful to the Displaywriter.
Originally I had thought to have acquired about 10 disks of programs and data, looseleaf. I had been storing them carefully until the day I could read them. I just discovered I have 50 more in storage boxes, some of which are IBM issue. I don't know what's on any of them.
In short, I need to find a way to get a keyboard to talk to the Displaywriter. Thanks to the help of Chuck(G) and the rest of the VCFED members I have already built and deployed an XT/AT adapter to translate between my 5160 and Model M keyboard. I think, in principle, the same approach might be employed here. However, there are three potential pitfalls: mechanical interface, electrical interface and signal decoding.
My reason for posting here: If anyone has already accomplished this feat I would very much like to hear details of how you did so. In the mean time, I'm getting closer to being able to image the IBM disks. When I have done so I will put the images on Google Drive and post again.
-CH-
