VC404 The Standard

One of my recent curbside finds is a machine put out by a Canadian company based in Waterloo Ont called Volker-Craig model vg-400. On the front it has a title VC404 The Standard. It has a k-b attached with ribbon cable which is about the size of a C64 with Function Pf1-12 buttons as well as a separate pod with APL,PAGE,FULL,LOCAL on the left vertically. There is a full qwerty alphabet and numerical pad as well as some specialized keys the most unusual of which is a key labelled "rub-out" and no down arrow. In the back it has a 25 pin RS232 connector, a BNC labelled "composite video" ,2 switches : one 3-pos.to configure parity the other "Transparent on off" It also has cutouts for parallell and serial (maybe a 9pin dshell for different modems) I haven't opened it up yet, and I must admit to doing what the impeccable Tony Duell would deem unforgiveable (sorry Tony, Couldn't he'p m'se'f) I plugged it in and tuned it on. It worked except for a stuck k-b which stopped printing to screen when I punched another key than local on the right-most pad. Obviosly a terminal of some sort, but the keypads are not what I would expect. My guess is it's a terminal for the deaf which hooked up to a service. But why all the other k-b functions. Any ideas ? ciao larry lwalker(a)interlog.com