Hello everyone,
I was recently given a broken Amiga 500 which I have used for parts.
All that is left from it is its (aesthetically pleasing) case and keyboard. I saw this page where someone converted a C64 case for mini-itx and I was quite impressed (
http://www.mini-itx.com/projects/c64/). I always loved the way to Amiga 500 looked, so it struck me;
it's case would make a really comfy home for a mini-itx (
www.mini-itx.com) motherboard - running WinXP and WinUAE...
After a few basic measurements I realised there is ample space inside the A500 case to accomodate a (17cmx17cm) :-o Via Epia M1000 m/b @1Ghz w/TVout, AC97, Lan, USB2.0 - and a full blown 3.5inch harddrive, slim-line cdrom and (possibly) even a slimline power supply (maplin.co.uk sell them for around 35 pounds) :-)
The more I think about the whole idea the more appealing it gets- I could perhaps attach a 5inch tft and make it semi-portable/ hack memory card readers and WLAN modules ....etc. I will probably start with it as soon as possible - there is only one downside:
I want to be able to use the Amiga 500's existing keyboard - is there any way I could do this?
Does anyone know of an easy way to interface an A500 (internal) keyboard with a pc motherboard - either ps2 or usb?
I know the opposite is possible (to get a PC keyboard plugged in the amiga) but I'm not very good at electronics and was wondering whether anyone has tried it . :-?
If this is not possible - then I might have to physically cut and snap the case to force a suitable pc keyboard to fit, which does not sound nice -as it will prob look ugly :-( - keeping as much of the original A500 looks is my aim...
thanks in advance for any help and if you're interested I'll keep you posted on the project's progress.
