Thinkpad Retrofit: Keyboard Part 1

Here's the Thinkpad keyboard removed from the laptop:

chunky but nicely built and deep Thinkpad keyboard

This is a really nice feeling keyboard, which of course exactly fits the laptop I'm trying to retrofit. So I'd like to get it working as a USB keyboard. This appears to be the exact same keyboard shared between the Thinkpad 340x, 355x, 360x, 370x, 700x, 701x, 720x, 750x, and 755x models. Here's a look at the back of the keyboard:

silver keyboard back with three ribbon cables

If you take a close look, you'll probably come to the same conclusion I did: the small white cable is probably for the trackpoint and its keys. Here's a close look at the three ribbon cables:

a close-up of the three ribbon cables on the back of the keyboard

So we have a six line white ribbon cable presumed to be for the trackpoint (which I'd also like to get working, but it's not as high a priority) and two green ribbon cables of 18 lines and 16 lines (with five apparently intentionally dead). I have the original motherboard, and will reclaim the connectors from it before I discard it in the hope they'll be useful for wiring this up.

If you go searching on the internet for turning a Thinkpad keyboard into a USB keyboard, you will almost inevitably find rampadc's good work turning a Thinkpad T60 keyboard into a USB keyboard. This may prove useful at some point, but the T60 is actually considerably newer than the 340CSE and has a very different connector. I'm hoping to find a board I can build with ready-made software as rampadc has provided for the T60 keyboard, because if I have to follow the path he did (re-interpreting the keyboard matrix and writing software to handle it), I don't think this will ever get done. I'd learn a lot trying to solve the problem, but I'm not willing to invest that much time in this particular project.

So I'm looking for any pointers or suggestions that anyone may have relating to this crazy project. Let me know.