ADAM Keyboard

The ADAM's detachable keyboard, and one of the parts of the machine that was genuinely well made: 75 full-travel keys in a sculptured stepped QWERTY layout, laid out for the 80-column text SmartWRITER works in.

What is on it

• A numeric keypad of its own.
• Six programmable function keys, the smart keys the word processor labels on screen.
• Ten command keys for the word processing operations - STORE/GET, DELETE and the rest.

How it connects

• Over ADAMnet, on a single data line through an RJ-12 connector, at 62.5 kbit/s half duplex.
• It carries its own Motorola 6801 microcontroller, which caches keystrokes and hands them over when the console asks for them.

That processor is why the keyboard is a peripheral in its own right rather than a matrix on a cable, and why it can be adapted to modern machines as a USB keyboard.