The DTV supports a PS/2 keyboard for an emulation of the original Commodore 64 keyboard. The PS/2 key mapping is hard-coded to a US keyboard layout. If you use a national (here: german) keyboard you have to translate the mapping manually.. Either by remembering the correct mapping or by painting new key caps…

Shadowolf on Forum64 presented a very nice solution: The KeyboardTwister. This small tinyAVR based HW Mod sits between the PS/2 connector of the DTV and the PS/2 keyboard and translates the keymapping.

Have a look at my KeyboardTwister gallery…

The KeyboardTwister connected to my DTV

The KeyboardTwister is placed into a small case (Teko 10006 from Reichelt) and already contains the PS/2 jack for the keyboard. A small cable with a PS/2 plug connects to the DTV.

Here the case is opened…

A closeup of the circuit: All is cramped on a small breadboard with a DIL ATtiny45 MCU sitting in the middle.

A stand-alone view of the KeyboardTwister. Simply plug it in beetween your DTV and your keyboard… and magically all keys are remapped correctly 😉

Finally a real close up… You can almost recognize the wiring of the circuit 😉 On the left is a 10-pin header for the ISP to program the Flash of the AVR. On the right you can see the DIL ATtiny45. Besides two resistors there is only some wiring and connectors left…

PS: Remember to use Shadowolf’s latest schematics as the first one has a bug in it: The PS/2 keyboard wires were swapped….