Until now I’ve been using a Sansun mini-keyboard with my 1chipMSX and Zemmix Neo. It’s small and it works with PS/2 as the One Chip MSX requires, but it’s very uncomfortable for typing because the keys are wobbly and not organised well.
So I set out looking for a new keyboard, but there isn’t much choice in the PS/2 space anymore nowadays and I wasn’t able to find a keyboard that suited me. I was looking for a quality low-travel keyboard, and most PS/2 keyboards available nowadays are either really cheap, or mechanical gaming keyboards with high travel.
The more I was looking at it, my Logitech Illuminated keyboard seemed more and more of a good fit. In addition of having a great feel, the keyboard layout is also similar to the MSX. And, I already own two of them. Only one problem: it does not support PS/2, only USB.
After searching for a while, I found there is one “active” USB to PS/2 converter on the market: the StarTech PS22USB. It isn’t cheap, but then again buying another quality keyboard wouldn’t be cheap either. For the Dutch, here’s the tweakers.net listing.
It arrived today and I’m happy to report it’s working like a charm. It’s quite compact, looks good and does not require external power. More importantly, it also seems to function without a hitch.
Now people mentioned in other threads to be aware of key ghosting. Note that key ghosting will be a property of the keyboard, not the PS/2 to USB converter. As for the Logitech Illuminated keyboard, it doesn’t have n-key rollover, but it passes the Nemesis test (diagonal + fire), and also in Synthesix I was able to play a bunch of chords without issues (on Mac OS X in emulator, I can’t). So, no key ghosting issues encountered yet, better than a real MSX keyboard so far.
So I can recommend this solution, maybe someone will find these experiences useful.
