Simulating keyboard input onto ribbon?
I don't know what year those came out, but I think your picture tells me it must have been after 1980. I actually modified an IBM Electronic Model 85, which probably competed with your unit at the time, in order to use it as a printer for my computer. I did all the work needed to figure out the communications used between the keyboard and the control circuits (it used reed relays at each key), designed the hardware, wrote all the software, and it worked the very first time I tried it! My unit was purchased new, I think, in 1981 or so.

If this is a similar unit, then the answer is yes, you can do this. It's just a matter of collecting detailed information about the keyboard. You show a ribbon connector, which is fine. But you need to characterize the exact details that travel on those conductors. I used an oscilloscope. You may need to use a similar tool, as well. Some of the lines were used in combinations. There was almost no pattern, per se, too. So I just created a table of observations and made sure that the software replicated these. And it worked.

But I think that with sufficient details, it's quite possible.



In my case, I was able to keep the typewriter functioning as a valid typewriter AND use it as a printer via a serial port interface. I just kept my hands off of the keyboard when printing.