I have seen Soroc IQ 120's and IQ 140's before, and also IQ 135, but never a Soroc IQ 150. I rescued a working Soroc IQ 150 from a dumpster once some years back, but can find no mention of the model on the internet. I contacted one of the founders of the former company, and he believes it was maybe their second model (he was not too sure). Anyway, the model number indeed says IQ 150 and it looks like a 140 with the whole detqched keyboard thing going on, except it is an all white/beige case. Anyone know anything about it?
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Anyone ever hear of a Soroc 150 terminal?
- Thread starter jordan
- Start date
Al Kossow
Documentation Wizard
wow, that's pretty rare. It doesn't turn up in the Datapro report on soroc terminals (they list 120,130,135, and 140)
pics of the inside and outside would be interesting. I'm also curious if it's microprocessor based.
Al Kossow
Documentation Wizard
yes, it has several eproms for the program, and one for the character generator.
the 15 pin connector means it will probably take a keyboard with parallel character output.
It's a shame you didn't get the keyboard. This is probably a block-mode terminal, where you
enter data into a screen form, then transmit it to a mainframe a whole screen at a time.
RickNel
Veteran Member
This looks pretty much like my IQ 135 apart from the detached keyboard - the 135 is monocoque.
You should be able to identify whether the keyboard link is serial or parallel. In the 135, the connection between keyboard and motherboard is a 20pin parallel cable that transmits the raw keyboard matrix patterns. You can see more detail about it in my blog posts here ( just do a search for Soroc) about re-using that keyboard to drive an AT keyboard controller.
If it requires a serial keyboard input you will see a uart chip of some kind next to the keyboard connector socket on the motherboard. Fifteen pins doesn't sound enough to carry the raw switch matrix signals in parallel. Unless Soroc used a serial driver chipset from another manufacturer, there should be a Motorola keyboard controller chip that takes the keyboard's switch matrix codes and translates them into logical keycodes for the CPU to use in building its display (with a character generator chip) and to send ASCII out the serial connector to the computer.
It probably can be reverse-engineered with a bit of persistence.
Rick
You should be able to identify whether the keyboard link is serial or parallel. In the 135, the connection between keyboard and motherboard is a 20pin parallel cable that transmits the raw keyboard matrix patterns. You can see more detail about it in my blog posts here ( just do a search for Soroc) about re-using that keyboard to drive an AT keyboard controller.
If it requires a serial keyboard input you will see a uart chip of some kind next to the keyboard connector socket on the motherboard. Fifteen pins doesn't sound enough to carry the raw switch matrix signals in parallel. Unless Soroc used a serial driver chipset from another manufacturer, there should be a Motorola keyboard controller chip that takes the keyboard's switch matrix codes and translates them into logical keycodes for the CPU to use in building its display (with a character generator chip) and to send ASCII out the serial connector to the computer.
It probably can be reverse-engineered with a bit of persistence.
Rick