Can I use my laptop keyboard for a PC?

I've had an unused laptop for over a year now (the motherboard's all messed up) and I've been thinking if it is possible for me to use the rest of it other than its hard disk and optical disk drive.

Is it possible to use my laptop keyboard (or convert it) so that it can be used on my PC?

Solution 1:

Assuming your keyboard is a 'simple' ps/2 keyboard, you'd need to get a PS/2 keyboard connector, work out what is what, and so on. If the keyboard has no logic, you need microcontroller - such as a teensy, reverse engineer all the contacts and so on.

Its simply not worth the cost, considering you can get membrane keyboards pretty cheap

Solution 2:

Most likely no, it is not possible. If you remove the laptop keyboard from the laptop you will notice the connector ribbon. You would need to find an external keyboard that took this type of connection or you'd need to find an adapter (as pointed out in @billc.cn comment) that would convert the proprietary adapter to a standard USB/PS2 keyboard adapter. Ultimately, if you managed to do that, you'd have to custom make a container for the keyboard so that it sat properly and ergonomically for usage.

If you want to do it as a side-project and invest time and money to learn and solder and reasearch, it's definitely a possibility, but for practice, no it's not.