/tashpower

An ADB power relay controller and PS/2 keyboard interface for Macintosh computers without soft power.

Primary LanguageAssemblyGNU General Public License v3.0GPL-3.0

TashPower

Elevator Pitch

It's firmware for a companion product to give soft power capability to a Macintosh that doesn't have it. It imitates the PowerKey Classic (model PK-1) by Sophisticated Circuits and can power the Macintosh on by a press of a connected ADB keyboard's power key and power it off when it shuts down as well as powering the Macintosh on and off on a user-defined schedule.

It also features a PS/2 keyboard interface that allows an independently powered PS/2 keyboard to power the Macintosh on and later makes it appear to the Macintosh as an ADB keyboard.

Technical Details

Connections

                        .--------.                     
                Supply -|01 \/ 08|- Ground             
          ADB <--> RA5 -|02    07|- RA0 <--- PS/2 Data 
ADB Power Key ---> RA4 -|03    06|- RA1 <--- PS/2 Clock
   Line Clock ---> RA3 -|04    05|- RA2 ---> Relay     
                        '--------'                     

The relay control line is active low.

External resistors should be used for the PS/2 lines (10 kΩ to 1 kΩ).

The ADB power key and line clock inputs have internal weak pullup resistors.

Building Firmware

Building the firmware requires Microchip MPASM, which is included with their development environment, MPLAB. Note that you must use MPLAB X version 5.35 or earlier or MPLAB 8 as later versions of MPLAB X have removed MPASM.