I think the dclausen.net looks like the best resource -- straight from  
USB to both the original keyboard and the mouse using a  
microcontroller, and he makes the source code available.  kdbabel  
looks like a great resource too, but for my purposes I think  
dclausen.net is exactly what I need.

Thanks mac128dotcom, and thanks everyone else, for all your input!

-dave

On Mar 11, 2009, at 1:31 PM, Mac128DOTcom wrote:

>
> Unfortunately the Cassie had NOTHING to do with ADB, it was it's own
> proprietary mess that was eventually replaced by ADB. And yes, it was
> adapted to run on an old-style Mac which is all they had at the time.
> So reverse engineering would be of no use as you'd have to create an
> adapter from Cassie to ADB, or USB.
>
> However, there is no need to reinvent the wheel. THE WORK HAS ALREADY
> BEEN DONE FOR YOU. This is not the first time this has come up.
>
> http://www.kbdbabel.org/
> http://dclausen.net/projects/tfam/
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/daveclausen/sets/72157603702105276
>
> Once more for the record, there is NOTHING simple about this. The
> Keyboard and mouse are NOT SERIAL devices per RS-232, 422 standards
> and use proprietary standards.
>
> And just for the record, while Microsoft did contribute some of the
> underlying code to Applesoft Basic, that was years before the IBM PC
> and even more before the advent of PS/2, which was entirely hardware
> driven by IBM. None of which influenced Apple's proprietary
> implementation of keyboards and Mice which were heavily evolved  from
> the simple Apple II hardware, not to mention the mouse which Bill
> Gates never conceived of until he got his hands on a Lisa years later.
>
> On Mar 11, 1:53 am, Gregg Eshelman <[email protected]> wrote:
>> --- On Tue, 3/10/09, Mac128DOTcom <[email protected]> wrote:
>>
>>
>>
>>> Trust others have thoroughly vetted this issue. All of the
>>> links on
>>> this page point to that. The Mouse and Keyboard were most
>>> certainly
>>> NOT standard RS-422 serial protocols. They were proprietary
>>> designs
>>> that relied on bi-directional communication between the
>>> device and the
>>> computer. PS/2 and ADB on the other hand are dumb devices
>>> that simply
>>> send data upon request to the computer, which does all the
>>> work. There
>>> is no simple way to convert them to USB. A proprietary
>>> adapter must be
>>> built and programmed. Writing a driver that emulates what
>>> the 128K Mac-
>>> side of the interface did and then  convert that into a
>>> standard USB interface would be monumental.
>>
>> This keyboard adapter is interesting. Converts the "Cassie" prototype
>> keyboards for use with a 128/512K Mac.
>>
>> http://www.applefritter.com/node/294
>>
>> It converts the prototype 3.5mm stereo jack ADB to the original Mac  
>> interface.
>>
>> If there's a way to reverse that design... then you just need an  
>> ADB to USB converter, which were made by more than one company.
>>
>> But first you'd have to find someone with one of those cassie  
>> converters willing to let you pry into its secrets.
> >


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