7 Jan
2026
7 Jan
'26
11:03 a.m.
Repeating from my earlier response. The CIT220 keyboard is NOT
compatible with the VT220's. You'd have to wire up a patch adapter.
I don't remember who I sold my CIT220 to last year and I could not
find a picture to show that the keyboard adapters are different.
Bill
On Wed, Jan 7, 2026 at 1:55 PM Richard via cctalk <cctalk(a)classiccmp.org> wrote:
In article <ab1dea3f-947a-4813-8cad-b57057af2c7d(a)snowmoose.com> you write:
I inherited a C. Itoh CIT-220 with no keyboard. Is
the keyboard model-
or C. Itoh-specific or will other keyboards work with it?
By the time we get to the VT 220 and clones, it's likely that there's
a microcontroller inside the keyboard that is doing the communication
with the main unit. Typically the communication is 1200 baud serial
bit stream with unknown contents.
I would try an LK-201 keyboard, the keyboard used with the VT 220. I
am not aware of any service manual (or even a user manual!) for this
terminal.
If you're really paranoid about damaging either the keyboard or the
terminal, you should use a voltmeter to identify which pins on the
connector are power and ground and make sure that they both the keyboard
you're going to try and the terminal agree on which pins are used for
power and ground. The remaining pins are going to be the serial transmit
and receive, likely at TTL levels not RS-232 levels.
There's a possibility of damage if power and ground are misconnected
but little chance of damage if it's just the receive and transmit that
are misconnected.
Hope that helps. Everything I know about this terminal is here:
<https://terminals-wiki.org/wiki/index.php/C._Itoh_CIT-220>
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