[Nimiq]

Unfortunately they had an interface box that went between the keyboard and the CPU, so even though it looks like the old-school AT DIN keyboard connector goes straight into the CPU - it doesn't. This interface box plugs into the back of the CPU and then the keyboard plugs into the interface box. A few people have purchased surplus Spectragens and run into exactly the same problem.

One complete old auction listing showed everything you need and handily they had a picture of the interface box - Texscan MSI's part number "ZKBI-3 Interface Module." I have never seen any wiring diagrams or reverse-engineering breakdowns of this 'Interface Module' - which may do little more than reassign the common AT/XT keyboard pins to non-standard pins.

I've been looking for one of these character generators for years - but after a bunch of research realize that I won't be able to do much with it unless it comes with this interface box.

**New Info July 2023: I picked up a Texscan MSI Spectragen Z4000 and a ZKB-2 interface box and attempted to use it with a standard AT keyboard. Didn't work apart from recognizing a couple of keys. After looking into it, it would appear the ZKB-3 (ZKBI-3) is the box you need if you want to use a standard AT 5-pin DIN type keyboard - where the ZKB-2 interface is meant to work with the older Ortek MCK-142 programmable keyboard (featuring custom Texscan keycaps), which had rows of extra keys programmed with Spectragen-specific macros. Unfortunately the MCK-142s go for huge dollars on Ebay thanks to their being sought-after by well-heeled "battlecruiser" keyboard collectors. If you look around archive.org in the old Texscan MSI pages you'll find the downloadable program loads for the MCK-142 along with instructions. Sadly, the files for "SG-EDIT W" were victims of robots-exclude and are not to be found on archive.org anywhere.

Currently Texscan MSI corporate appears to be somewhat more than really, really tired of fielding questions by people still using the old stuff and really, really want you to buy the new stuff - so they will not help with any parts, software, manuals or even questions related to legacy systems...and more than a little abruptly too. I think they wound up binning anything and everything to do with legacy systems that was still hanging around after the last ownership change.