18 Nov
2013
18 Nov
'13
5:20 a.m.
On Sun, 17 Nov 2013, Chuck Guzis wrote:
On 11/17/2013 04:18 PM, Steven Hirsch wrote:
> I'm not sure exactly what pieces fell out of the Corvus keyboard. I did
> find an incredibly tiny coil spring that could have been used to load a
> pin against a nylon track to mechanically capture the key when pressed.
> Never saw the pin itself.
>
> Your comment makes me wonder if the Concept might not also toggle
> capslock in software. I could swear it had a mechanical detent, but may
> be mixing it up with the Lisa keyboard (last Keytronics unit I had apart
> on the bench).
I've got a couple bits of old equipment here with
Keytronics keyboards that
have three types of key action. The first is the usual make-break momentary
contact. The second is alternate-action--useful for things like test or
scroll-lock. The third is the Caps-lock thing--press "Lock" and the key
remains down until you hit the shift key.
This would have been the second: push-on, push-off. But now I'm wondering
if it ever actually was used that way. The system unit and monitor are
not operational at the moment, so it may be a while before I can test it.
All I know is that it was not latching down when I disassembled the
keyboard to check the foam pads. Amazingly enough for a 33 year unit, the
foam is 100% intact on all keys and appears to have the proper resilience!
When I started poking at the capslock key, a white plastic band around it
popped off followed by some tiny nylon parts and the smallest coil spring
I've seen. It's quite possible that keytronics put that assembly on all
production keyboards and simply left out the pin from the toggle assembly
for menufacturers who wanted to do it in software.
Steve
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