12 May
2005
12 May
'05
2:11 p.m.
Minor problem, in that I found the keyboard's
pretty hosed. It uses
metal foil circles for the switch contacts; these are attached to the
switch plungers via foam spacers which give he correct clearance and
presumably help with the keyboard's feel...
Unfortunately it's the same stuff normally used for fan filters, and has
totally decayed :-(
Ah, a Keytronics keyboard.... and alas I know the problem well, as the
keyboard on my PERQ 2T1 has suffered :-(.
When I get a round tuit, I think I should make some kind of cutting punch
and stemp out 100 or so foam circles to fix the darn thing.... Or if you
find a quciker way of doing it, let me know...
[...]
Hmm... I suppose if the self-tests are mouse driven I
can run the
keyboard with no keys just for the purpose of testing the terminal
though (and short pads where necessary to simulate keypresses) Thanks
It's capacitive (not contacts). You'll discover the conducting layer is
on the _top_ (foam-side) of the lower plastic disk, and doesn't actually
short anything). My experience is that a finger placed on the pads
provided enough extra capacitance to simulate a keypress...
-tony