Maxim Jacquet's Custom Mechanical Keyboard Is Tailor-Made for a Retro MOS 6502 Computer

Maker and vintage computing enthusiast Maxim Jacquet has designed a mechanical keyboard with a difference: it outputs its keystrokes on an eight-bit parallel port, for use with a retro-style MOS Technology 6502 microcomputer.

"This is my parallel ASCII keyboard, which I designed and built," Jacquet says by way of introduction. "It outputs data on a parallel 8 bit port with a strobe signal to indicate key presses. I'll use it with a [MOS] 6502 computer but it can be adapted with any microcontroller or vintage computer. Could be used with an Arduino as a cool vintage input method."

Building your own keyboard is a rite of passage for many makers, but Jacquet's creation differs from most: rather than a microcontroller designed to scan the keyboard and output keystrokes over USB to a modern computer, it's built around a General Instrument AY-5-2376 keyboard encoder — and its output is an eight-bit parallel port.

"This is technically my second keyboard ever, but the first one was a mess, requiring 3D printed parts all around the place," Jacquet writes. "The design from which I took inspiration for the circuit board is from the TV Typewriter Cookbook from Don Lancaster." The keyboard is built on a custom PCB inspired by Lancaster's book, using modern Gateron Brown mechanical switches and off-the-shelf SA-profile keycaps.

More information is available in Jacquet's Reddit post; design files for the PCB have not been publicly released.