What to do when you receive your keyboards
I haven't yet updated the readme file on the repo for the latest revisions, but since the first keyboards are shipping now, I need to provide some guidance about how to install those, depending on what you ordered.
A note on the current adapters
The current adapters fit in the case, but require some persuasion. The clearance under the keyboard in XE computers is extremely tight, to the point that to be able to assemble the keyboards on top of the adapter, the connector on the Atari side may have to be gently pushed forward, making sure the solder points don't suffer from that. The FFC cable itself will have to fold at the point it exits the connector (this is fine, those cables are designed to fold).
Even doing all that, I'm not super-happy about how tight the whole thing is and how it may lift the keyboard unevenly in some cases.
So my recommendation for now is to unsolder the Atari connector from the motherboard and replace it with some pin headers, and then solder the adapter onto those headers parallel to the motherboard. I'll try to post some photos of what that looks like. This should ensure there's plenty of space and no excessive mechanical constraints on the hardware. I understand some of you will prefer not to touch their precious XE motherboards.
I have a design in mind for a better adapter that moves the connector sideways to the right of the Atari connector. I'll ship that new design for free to everyone in the first batch of pre-orders who want it. ETA on this: 2-3 weeks for the new adapters to arrive here in Washington state.
Modern keyboard (assembled)
If you ordered an assembled modern keyboard, it should be very simple.
You may have to separate your printed Fn keys using some nippers and then press fit them on the corresponding switches.
The FFC cable should already be attached to the back of the keyboard. Verify the connection is solid and readjust if necessary (the connectors have two tabs on the side that you can pull to free the cable; the cable should be fully inserted with the contacts facing away from the PCB; make sure the tabs are both fully pushed back to ensure a solid connection).
[skip to the common section]
Vintage keyboard (assembled)
Usually this will come with the adapters for your flavor of vintage keys in a small bag. You'll need to separate each adapter using nippers. The small parts linking the adapters during fabrication are positioned to not get in the way, but it's still a good idea to cut them as flush as possible.
Insert each adapter in one of the switches.
Use a key cap extractor to remove the keys from your vintage keyboard (a key extractor is the best way to make sure you don't damage the caps). Make sure to be especially gentle if you have the square variant, those break easily.
Put the two space bar stabilizer adapters into your vintage space bar. You can set aside the old metal rod for this key, you won't need it.
Remove the stabilizer rod for your left shift key. You'll need to slightly bend this so it can go around the new switch and into the new stabilizer. This may require some fiddling. In the worst case, the left shift stabilizer can be omitted if you can't find a way to make it work. This is my least favorite part of those keyboards...
Assemble the caps back onto the new keyboard by gently pressing them into place.
[skip to the common section]
Modern keyboard (kit)
If you ordered a kit, there is a specific order in which you should assemble.
Assemble the stabilizers. The stabilizers consist of a larger part that has the threaded part, a smaller part that slides into the previous one, a metal bar linking two assemblies of the two previous parts, and some hardware. The stabilizers are best assembled in this order: slide the smaller part into the larger one (make sure you orient it properly), then insert one end of the metal rod into that assembly and push it into place so it clicks and is properly secured. Once you've done that with both ends of the stabilizer, you should be able to verify both ends lift together and with no friction (some people like to lube their stabilizers by the way).
Once the stabilizers are assembled, you can put them in their respective places on the top side of the PCB. Insert the bottom, non-threaded part first, try to lay the stabilizer's surface flat on the PCB, and push the top threaded part into place. This usually moves the other end a bit, so make sure both ends are properly inserted all the way into the holes in the PCB.
Turn the PCB over. Position one of the small washers around each of the screw holes for the stabilizers and secure it with a screw. Repeat this for the space stabilizer, the left shift and the return key. Do not do it for the backspace / del key as the screw would get in the way of the FFC connector. This is a minor design flaw that I'll remove in a future revision, but it's fine, the stabilizer won't move if you've properly installed it.
Use needle-nose pliers to fold the legs of the power LED to the correct length so the LED when laid flat has its whole body outside of the PCB's perimeter, but just so. The long leg (the anode) goes to the right, its short leg to the left (you can see that pad is connected to the ground plane of the PCB). Solder that in place and cut the extra length of the legs. If you can't find the small jumpers that should have been in your package, you can reuse those cut legs for the next step.
Solder two jumper wires to the left of the PCB to configure it for Caps. This rewires the key that's above left shift and that's normally Control on a vintage keyboard. Control on the modern keyboard goes to the left of the space bar, and this key is reconfigured to be Caps. The two wires should short from the middle position to the right position. The silkscreen has helper text for this.
Insert switches into the aluminum or aluminium plate depending on whether you are in the US with the LED window to the back and the pins to the front. The exception to this is the return key that should have its LED window to the right and pins to the left. Note that there are some differences with the vintage layout: the del/backspace key is two units wide, so put the switch in the middle position (there are three positions to accommodate for vintage layouts). Same for return, put it in the middle position among the three available vertically on the right of the board. There are also two additional positions around the space bar, each with its own switch. You might want to not position the del and return switches before the plate is in place as it may move, and it's fine to insert it later.
After making sure all the switch pins are vertical and none are bent out of place, carefully align the plate and switches with the stabilizers and the PCB. Slowly and carefully complete that assembly, making sure no pins get bent. Once that is done, the plate and PCB should be a few millimeters apart, more or less evenly spaced across the whole surface. You may want to secure them together with tape or clothespins until you've soldered enough of them.
Solder the switches onto the PCB.
Solder the FFC connector in place. This is the only SMT component you'll have to solder. There are several methods to do that, and the 1mm pitch is not too bad. If you're not used to SMD soldering, I'd recommend trying your hand on one of the training boards that you can find online. There's also plenty of tutorials out there to get you started.
I recommend at this point to test your work. Get your multimeter and set it in continuity mode, then verify the connection in order between each of the holes next to the FFC connector and the pins of the connector. Directions here assume you put the connector to the bottom-right of your work area. You'll want to touch very gently on the connector side so you don't artificially create a connection by pushing on the pin. Hole one is marked as such on the silkscreen and corresponds to the connector pin closest to it. Once you've got a solid beep for the first pin, move one of your probes to the next hole and check the beeping stops (if it doesn't, that means the pin you were testing and the next are shorted). Hole numbers go like this: move down one hole, then up and left diagonally, then repeat. The pins just go in order going to the left.
You should be able to test all the pins this way to pin 24. The connector has two more lines for the LED backlighting. They should be connected to two of the four holes you can see aligned vertically on the board to the right of the connector.
And then you're pretty much done for the keyboard itself, just pull the two tabs for the connector, insert the cable all the way with contacts facing away from the PCB, then push the tabs back in.
Now you need to assemble your adapter. The process is pretty much a repeat of the procedure to assemble the connector on the main board. To check your work, you'll verify continuity between the connector pins and the edge contacts on the bottom of this little board, in reverse order (start on the left of the edge connector and on the right of the FFC connector). For the last two pins, one is connected to edge contact 1 and the other to the bottom-left contact of the pot that you're going to solder next (look for the three holes to the left of the FFC connector).
Solder the small pot. If you don't care about backlighting or about being able to change the intensity, you could leave it open, short it or put a resistor in its place.
[skip to the common section]
Vintage keyboard (kit)
If you ordered a kit, there is a specific order in which you should assemble.
Assemble the space stabilizer. The stabilizers consist of a larger part that has the threaded part, a smaller part that slides into the previous one, a metal bar linking two assemblies of the two previous parts, and some hardware. The stabilizers are best assembled in this order: slide the smaller part into the larger one (make sure you orient it properly), then insert one end of the metal rod into that assembly and push it into place so it clicks and is properly secured. Once you've done that with both ends of the stabilizer, you should be able to verify both ends lift together and with no friction (some people like to lube their stabilizers by the way).
Once the stabilizer is assembled, you can put both ends in their respective places on the top side of the PCB. Insert the bottom, non-threaded part first, try to lay the stabilizer's surface flat on the PCB, and push the top threaded part into place. This usually moves the other end a bit, so make sure both ends are properly inserted all the way into the holes in the PCB.
Turn the PCB over. Position one of the small washers around each of the screw holes for the stabilizers and secure it with a screw.
The left shift stabilizer is more problematic and potentially the most frustrating part of this build. Worst case, it may be fine to just omit this stabilizer because if improperly installed it can make things worse. The stabilizer consists of two plastic parts that should fit into slots around the switch's position. Depending on whether you have circle or square caps, it should be installed upside up or upside down. Those stabilizers are very tricky to put in place. Once they are in place, you'll need (later, we'll get back to that) to get the metal rod from your vintage left shift, remove it, then bend it slightly so it can go around the switch and still be inserted into the new stabilizer. I'm not kidding when I say this is frustrating.
Use needle-nose pliers to fold the legs of the power LED to the correct length so the LED when laid flat has its whole body outside of the PCB's perimeter, but just so. The long leg (the anode) goes to the right, its short leg to the left (you can see that pad is connected to the ground plane of the PCB). Solder that in place and cut the extra length of the legs. If you can't find the small jumpers that should have been in your package, you can reuse those cut legs for the next step.
Solder two jumper wires to the left of the PCB to configure it for Control. This keeps the vintage layout wiring for the Control key. The two wires should short from the middle position to the left position. The silkscreen has helper text for this and should make it clear you are wiring for Control.
Insert switches into the aluminum or aluminium plate depending on whether you are in the US with the LED window to the back and the pins to the front. The exceptions to this are the delete switch and the break switch that are upside down, and the return switch that has its pins to the right and LED window to the left. If your switches have two smaller legs around the center cylinder, you may have to nip the bottom one so it can get in place correctly.
After making sure all the switch pins are vertical and none are bent out of place, carefully align the plate and switches with the stabilizers and the PCB. Slowly and carefully complete that assembly, making sure no pins get bent. Once that is done, the plate and PCB should be a few millimeters apart, more or less evenly spaced across the whole surface. Low-profile switches have a tendency to not attach to the plate as well as full-sized switches, so don't worry if some of these fall out during assembly, you'll have a chance to set them back in later. At this point, you want to have enough to ensure proper alignment. Another thing with low-profile switches is that they're not as good at maintaining the distance between PCB and plate. To make that distane more even with the distance imposed by the space stabilizer, I glue a couple of washers between plate and PCB on the top of the assembly to keep them apart. You may want to also secure them together with tape or clothespins until you've soldered enough switches.
Solder the switches onto the PCB.
Solder the FFC connector in place. This is the only SMT component you'll have to solder. There are several methods to do that, and the 1mm pitch is not too bad. If you're not used to SMD soldering, I'd recommend trying your hand on one of the training boards that you can find online. There's also plenty of tutorials out there to get you started.
I recommend at this point to test your work. Get your multimeter and set it in continuity mode, then verify the connection in order between each of the holes next to the FFC connector and the pins of the connector. Directions here assume you put the connector to the bottom-right of your work area. You'll want to touch very gently on the connector side so you don't artificially create a connection by pushing on the pin. Hole one is marked as such on the silkscreen and corresponds to the connector pin closest to it. Once you've got a solid beep for the first pin, move one of your probes to the next hole and check the beeping stops (if it doesn't, that means the pin you were testing and the next are shorted). Hole numbers go like this: move down one hole, then up and left diagonally, then repeat. The pins just go in order going to the left.
You should be able to test all the pins this way to pin 24. The connector has two more lines for the LED backlighting. They should be connected to two of the four holes you can see aligned vertically on the board to the right of the connector.
And then you're pretty much done for the keyboard itself, just pull the two tabs for the connector, insert the cable all the way with contacts facing away from the PCB, then push the tabs back in.
Now you need to assemble your adapter. The process is pretty much a repeat of the procedure to assemble the connector on the main board. To check your work, you'll verify continuity between the connector pins and the edge contacts on the bottom of this little board, in reverse order (start on the left of the edge connector and on the right of the FFC connector). For the last two pins, one is connected to edge contact 1 and the other to the bottom-left contact of the pot that you're going to solder next (look for the three holes to the left of the FFC connector).
Solder the small pot. If you don't care about backlighting or about being able to change the intensity, you could leave it open, short it or put a resistor in its place.
[skip to the "Vintage keyboard (assembled)" section]
Common section: inserting the adapter
Remove your existing keyboard, pulling the membrane connector carefully using both hands to avoid accidentally folding it.
Insert the adapter (or do the replacement described above). The FFC connector should face the front of the case. There's also a little triangular mark on the part of the adapter that plugs into the Atari; that should be on the left (pin 1).
Then position the keyboard to the back of the XE case so you have enough space to work and the cable can reach the adapter's connector. Open the connector, insert the cable with the contacts facing away from the board, then push back the two tabs, making sure the connection is solid and the cable can't move.
You can now power your computer. The power LED on the keyboard should go on and the backlighting should too. It's a good idea to go to the diagnostics and try the keyboard diagnostics. I've already done that on all the keyboards I shipped, but you never know what could happen in transit.
The little pot on the adapter can be rotated with a small screwdriver. This adjusts the brightness of the backlight LEDs (this can also limit the current the backlighting draws).
And that's it. Let me know if you have any questions or need to troubleshoot anything.
I mean... You can do whatever you want with your property, but that is definitely not a goal as far as I'm concerned, and I'm almost tempted to get out of my way to make that sort of thing more difficult Seriously though, there will be a beautiful 3D-printed XE-style case for this, and that will be the recommended enclosure. Beyond that, you'll be on your own... In other news, I did some trace surgery on the two prototypes I built and now the F1-4 keys are in the right order. Everything is working fine. I'm working on machine language drivers for it now, and on the enclosure. I also received the prototype key caps for F1-4, and they look great.
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