Then again, these only show how the keyboard connectors are wired on the boards of each machine, not how each keyboard is wired from the connector to the keys... which is exactly the same for both the 64 and VIC.
You THINK the rows and cols are reversed because for some reason, the engineers have decided to use a different 8 bit IO port on the CIAs than on the VIAs. But so what? the kernal of each machine is programmed to use these IO ports accordingly...
Anyways, even with the rows and columns reversed, the matrix on the keyboard itself, is still the same.
Isn't that what they call a moot point? In this specific case, its not even a valid one...
Perhaps the VERY first C64s had a reversed pinout until some engineer or accountant at Commodore questioned why they didn't stick to the same pinout as on the VIC-20 since the keyboards are pretty much identical. Another answer may be that Dimlow suffered bad connectivity, a short or something that refused the keyboard to work once it was moved over?
Anyway, it seems keyboards are interchangeable for 99.5% of us which is a good figure even if it would not cover ALL people. A bit like when Apple bragged about 99.6% happy customers.
wiskow wrote:A while back, I put the earliest "PET style" VIC-20 keyboard into a 64c, and it worked just fine...
I think I've mentioned this already but that keyboard looks really nice in that case. I'm getting together the bits and pieces I need for a mod I have planned and would love one of these keyboards in it - I need to practice a little patience I suppose.
Fantastic. I never thought we'd see the day when we'd be able to make all these computers look like they'd just rolled off the factory floor once again!
