DIY Old Keyboard 5-pin DIN to PS2 Converter

Intro: DIY Old Keyboard 5-pin DIN to PS2 Converter

Last Week at 2am in the night in the midst of submitting an important assignment suddenly many of my keyboard keys turned faulty.
As all shops were closed I had to thought of some way.
In my junk I found my old DIN-5 keyboard for my old Pentium II
I took me an hour to convert it to PS2

STEP 1:

My Old Keyboard with a DIN-5 pin

STEP 2:

I cut the old and my existing keyboard wires

STEP 3:

With the help of a Multimeter I determined pin no. with its corresponding colour

STEP 4:

Join the wires with each other with respect to its purpose not its colour i-e clock with clock, data with data etc.

STEP 5:

Tape it up and
VOILA!
Your DIY PS2 keyboard.

Comments

[Dick Choy]

How to convert IBM DIN keyboard to USB plug?

[MichalN18]

This is a very useful hack, but a much cleaner way to adapt a keyboard is to replace the whole cable from a donor keyboard or a keyboard cable you kept for some reason, like I did. There were header connectors on the end of both cables, but they were different pinouts and different sizes, so I just cut the donor cable's connector off, desoldered the header off the keyboard and soldered the cable wires in its place.

[Timoxenos]

Thanks a lot for the instructions. I did the reverse. I converted a PS/2 keyboard to a 5-pin DIN for my old Pentium I computer. I used a donor 5-pin DIN cable from a keyboard that was not working.

[shahbazali4u]

Sorry, I seemed to have vanished from Instructables for so many years and I have seen many messages in inbox. A lot of people seem to be confused regarding the how to determine the function of the pins. Please refer to Step 4. The function of each pin is fixed but the colours would vary so the main logic is finding which colour wire corresponds to which pin (so you dont need to find the function of each). I did a continuity test or a beep test with the multimeter. Dont worry if you dont have a multimeter. Just take a small led/bulb and a 3V battery with wires. That will work too. Do the same with the PS/2 connector and join the wires and it would work as a PS2 keyboard. PS/2 to USB connections are very cheaply available for a £1 or so your old keyboard can be an emergency backup for your USB keyboard. Also as I mentioned it was kind of a late night idea so I just joined up the wires and not soldered them so it looks a bit rough. I know :) Hope this helps.

[didovstom]

Hello :)

Well done, its very usefull project :)

after you did that, how it recognize your keyboard (as usb HID or as PS/2 keyboard)?

[shahbazali4u]

Apologies for late reply. As a PS/2 Keyboard. I am glad you like it :)

[majban]

Very good idea but it is better don't cut the cable . you can unscrew the back of your keyboards and change the whole cable with socket. of course you should do your modification at end side of your cable . You can attache new socket or solder the wires.

[DileepP]

I am having one keyboard of M/s i Key with two PS/2 connector one for keyboard other for mouse.They are connected to single PS/2 port through adaptor. Recently i purchased other keyboard with same company but with different model no i.e. DU-5K-TP2 instead of DU-5K-TP but this keyboard is not working with existing adaptor. Please help me.....One difference is that pin no. 3 of both PS/2 connectors are shorted from keyboard itself......this was not thetre in earlier one

[madeit54]

I have a 5 pin mini din male adapter with a slightly different configuration. My male adapter 2 pins on left side, a small rectangle in the middle, and 3 pins on right side.
Assuming that pin number sequence follows bottom left to bottom right, pin 1 would be first pin on left and pin 5 would be last pin on right, is it safe to assume that my pin 1 and your pin one have the same purpose? If not, how do you determine each pin's function?

[MikeE11]

can you just tell me what keyboard color wire went to next keyboard color wire

[shahbazali4u]

Hi! Do not connect the wires with respect to the colour, as they are not standardized worldwide. They should be connected w.r.t their purpose. Just follow the above instructions. If you still need help, please let me know.

[MikeE11]

got din wired to ps2 cable

[shahbazali4u]

Nice! I am glad you wired it. Did it work?

[shubhansh.rai.50]

Will the keyboard work if the 6th pin of ps/2 is broken...?

[shahbazali4u]

Yes it will work! There are only four wires to connect. Pin 2 and 6 are not used

[pajavozd]

Tthank you for helping me a lot :D Very useful instructable !!

[Syed Hasan Askari Rizvi]

thanx it will help me

[rimar2000]

This is a very useful instructable, thanks for sharing.

[shahbazali4u]

You are most welcome

[mr_tinker]

Well done - simple but very practical!! That's why I love Instructables :-)