Unusual Amiga keyboard controller

From: Gerrit Heitsch <*gerrit_at_laosinh.s.bawue.de*> Date: Sun, 12 Aug 2018 16:34:22 +0200 Message-ID: <a6f6fb65-e9c8-9a62-0488-c839ec3ce33c@laosinh.s.bawue.de> · gerrit_at_laosinh.s.bawue.de

Hello,

I got my A2000A out of storage this weekend to check it over. Still 
works, no battery damage since it looks like it was stored in a dry room 
standing on the front before I got it. So when the battery leaked, the 
KOH didn't cause any damage.

Expanded the memory card to 1 MB and tested the RAM with systest, works.

Should be usable for games that are happy with 512KB Chip-RAM.

When looking at the keyboard, I noticed that it's one of the early ones 
made by Cherry (G80-0904) and when I opened it to clean it, I saw that 
that controller is not a 6570-036 but an 8039 with a 2716 EPROM for the 
code. Of course I had to desolder it and dump it since I remember dimly 
that later keyboards of this kind used an 8049 with internal ROM.

If anyone is interested in about 2 KB of 8039 code, drop me a mail. I 
doubt it will be a pleasant read though.

Since an 8039 is still easily available (or an 8049 switched to external 
ROM), one could now make new Amiga keyboards... :)

  Gerrit