13 Sep
2016
13 Sep
'16
9:16 a.m.
On 9/13/16 6:19 AM, Liam Proven wrote:
One of the great things about vintage mechanical
keyboards is that
they can be acquired very cheaply indeed. ;-)
This posting must have been trapped in a time warp since 1996 :-)
I've been working on archiving documentation and firmware from microprocessor
based CRT terminals for a couple of months, since I realized they are disappearing
the same way CRT monitors have. Besides the surviving examples looking like
they have been stored in a cow barn for 20 years, they (almost) never come with
a keyboard if it was detachable. This is bad enough that I've been thinking of
building a serial protocol converter for Televideo and Qume terminals for Wyse
keyboards, which you can still find for a painful but not absurdly high price.
Unfortunately, the guys building new Cherry keyboards fabricate new keytops for
Windows extended keyboards, and not ASCII (ie. VT-100 style) or ANSI (VT-220 style)
so unless you want to spring the cash to have 500 sets of keytops made, you can't
even make a practical replacement.
I did do the Snoopy Dance this weekend, though, when I found an Esprit at the flea
market for $20. Pics and firmware dumps up on bitsavers under hazeltine/esprit now.