🚀 go-pugleaf

David Byram-Wigfield <byram@removethis.cappella.demon.co.uk> wrote:

> Paul St George <paul@minument.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> 
> > Can anybody help me?
> > 
> > I want to use a switch to do the same job as any one key on a Mac
> > Keyboard. What do I need to make or buy to put between this switch and
> > the keyboard or between the switch and the computer?
> 
> I wouldn't recommend direct keyboard or mouse wiring as back voltage
> surges may fry your Mac via the ASB port.

I very much doubt that - how could this happen?  If you're not
connecting a capacitive or inductive load, you shouldn't have any
trouble with voltage surges, and even if you *do* get voltage surges,
they'd be unlikely to fry anything except your mouse or keyboard.

> The old 32k BBCB computers frequently controlled external mechanicals via
> the RS serial port using a tiny BASIC recipe and an *FX command.

Really?  I would have thought that using one of the two parallel ports
or the A->D port (which has two switch inputs as well as the two A->D
inputs) would have been much more sensible.  It's what I always did.
The parallel ports are more suited to this sort of thing too.

[snip]

Rowland.

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